Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Pat Mitchell Announces Retirement
Many of you have known Pat Mitchell of the Tennessee County Services Association office for years. She has recently announced her pending retirement, effective the end of May. She has been the executive secretary to TCSA for the past 32 years, and has always been an integral part of the county associations. Pat has overseen countless events and meetings, always planning them to perfection and pulling them off without a hitch. I’m sure many of you have benefitted from the magic she works, sorting out registration problems at a hotel, sending you critical information about meetings, or just taking care of business in general. She will be greatly missed and difficult to replace. I hope you will join me in wishing her the very best in her retirement. She will be missed by all of us as well as countless county officials, both past and present, from all across the state.
Lack of Posts
As the legislature has stepped into high gear, it has become more challenging to have time to post updates on this site. Committee calendars are filling up with both bills and budget hearings. I will encourage you once again to frequent the CTAS website where there are regular Recovery Act updates. Many of these funding sources have short deadlines for application. I also encourage you to plan for attending the Post-Legislative Conference June 2 and 3 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Contact our office if you need registration information. There is a legitimate risk that the "post" legislative conference may not be "post." The Legislative Session may be continuing into June which may cause us to adjust conference schedules. Regardless, the conference will go on and information will be presented about what has happened this year.
Internet Forums for Governing Bodies
Last year, legislation passed that created a pilot project in Knox County to allow an internet forum for county commissioners to communicate with each other. This was in response to lawsuits and injunctions related to alleged violations of the open meetings act. The internet forum, which is open to public view, gives the commissioners a place to publically share information about issues before the county commission without circumventing the state's open meeting laws.
A bill is now on its way to the Governor for his signature that would extend this pilot project to cities, counties and school boards statewide. The bill is HB 533/SB832 by Rep. Dunn and Sen. McNally. The bill originally simply extended a sunset provision on the Knox County pilot project.
Essentially, as it passed, the bill allows governing bodies of cities, counties and school districts to set up a forum over the internet for sharing of information between members. There are several conditions that must be met and before using the site and you must file a plan with the office of open records on how you intend to comply with the conditions. The conditions are: 1) There must be public notice of an intent to use such a website; 2) The county must provide public access to the communications; 3) There must be control of who can communicate through the forum; 4) The posts must be archived for at least one year; and 5) Computers must be provided for public access at the public library, the courthouse or other public building so that someone without a computer or internet access can still have access to the forum.
Communication over this site cannot substitute for a meeting of the governing body, so this is not a form of teleconferencing or internet conferencing. But information shared between members of the governing body on the website will not be considered a violation of the open meetings act. I plan to get in touch with the Office of Open Records soon to see if they will be putting out any guidance on the law and what they want to see in plans filed with their office. When I get that, I’ll try and get it distributed to the counties. In the meantime, you may want to consider whether this could be a useful mechanism for your members of your county commission to become better informed about issues before they come before up in the meeting for consideration.
A bill is now on its way to the Governor for his signature that would extend this pilot project to cities, counties and school boards statewide. The bill is HB 533/SB832 by Rep. Dunn and Sen. McNally. The bill originally simply extended a sunset provision on the Knox County pilot project.
Essentially, as it passed, the bill allows governing bodies of cities, counties and school districts to set up a forum over the internet for sharing of information between members. There are several conditions that must be met and before using the site and you must file a plan with the office of open records on how you intend to comply with the conditions. The conditions are: 1) There must be public notice of an intent to use such a website; 2) The county must provide public access to the communications; 3) There must be control of who can communicate through the forum; 4) The posts must be archived for at least one year; and 5) Computers must be provided for public access at the public library, the courthouse or other public building so that someone without a computer or internet access can still have access to the forum.
Communication over this site cannot substitute for a meeting of the governing body, so this is not a form of teleconferencing or internet conferencing. But information shared between members of the governing body on the website will not be considered a violation of the open meetings act. I plan to get in touch with the Office of Open Records soon to see if they will be putting out any guidance on the law and what they want to see in plans filed with their office. When I get that, I’ll try and get it distributed to the counties. In the meantime, you may want to consider whether this could be a useful mechanism for your members of your county commission to become better informed about issues before they come before up in the meeting for consideration.
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