Local Officials Oppose Open Meetings Change

By: John Huotari
The Oak Ridger

Oct. 31, 2007

Three elected local officials say they oppose changing Tennessee law to allow more private meetings of public bodies.

The change could lead to cliques and dysfunctional government, Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan said.

“We don’t need that,” he said.

At issue is how to define a public meeting in Tennessee’s Open Meetings Act. The current law calls for open meetings when two or more city council or county commission members get together to deliberate public business.

But last week a state subcommittee voted 7-2 to recommend changing the law to allow up to a quorum of a public body’s members to meet in private. A quorum is typically a majority.

“That’s not something I would be in favor of,” said state Sen. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge. He chairs the state’s Open Government Committee, which could hear the subcommittee’s recommendation in November.

The proposal, probably the most controversial so far, would also have to be considered by the Tennessee General Assembly before being adopted, McNally said.

Anderson County Commission Chairman Myron Iwanski said he would probably oppose the recommended change, although he has not seen the legislation.

Under the changed definition, eight of the 16 members of the Anderson County Commission could gather in private to talk about public business.

“I’m not in favor of allowing eight commissioners to meet in secret to discuss issues,” Iwanski said.

In Oak Ridge, meanwhile, three City Council members could meet privately if the change were adopted.

Beehan and McNally said the current “two or more” standard seems to be working well and doesn’t need to be altered.

Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, agreed.

“The quorum standard would just encourage too much mischief,” he said.

TCOG has drafted a number of proposed changes to the state’s open-meetings and open-records laws, including penalties for violations.

McNally and Iwanski said they would like more clarification of what it means to deliberate.

There is some question of what two elected officials can discuss without running afoul of the Open Meetings Act, also known as the Sunshine Law, Iwanski said.

Gibson said TCOG has agreed to define deliberations. It could mean talking about votes or exchanging votes as opposed to just talking about factual information, Gibson said.

A recent Knox County case was about exchanging votes, Gibson said. In that case, a jury found the Knox County Commission had violated the state’s open-meetings law in appointing a dozen new officeholders in January. Knox County Chancellor Daryl R. Fansler has nullified the 12 appointments and told commissioners not to deliberate in private again.

Now, Knox County representatives are “taking an example of why a strong Sunshine Law is needed and turning it around to say the law needs to be changed,” Gibson said.

But David Connor, Tennessee County Commissioners Association executive director, said the chancellor’s ruling prohibits Knox County commissioners from having conversations about items that could be on their agenda now or in the future.

“We (think) that has taken the definition of deliberations too far,” said Connor, whose organization supports changing the definition of a public meeting to a “quorum” standard.

Adopting the proposed change would “get away” from the problem of defining deliberations, Connor said. Thirty-seven states and the Tennessee General Assembly use the quorum standard, he said.

The change could be paired with penalties. If it were, government secrecy should not increase, Connor said.

Besides adopting the quorum standard, another possible solution to the “deliberation problem” would be to satisfactorily clarify what the term means, he said.

John Huotari can be contacted at (865) 220-5533. The Oak Ridger reporter is also president of the East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which is a charter member of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.