As I have to go chop celery and onions in a few minutes to make sure my minions have dressing for Thanksgiving, I want to talk to you a few minutes about the sunshine law.
At a recent county commission meeting, our chief staff writer extradonaire left a questionnaire for our local guys about changes in the Open Meetings Act.
She told me today she got eight of the anonymous ballots back. Six out of eight that we received said they WANTED changes in the law to go from two to four. We asked for an explanation of why they wanted the changes and, of course, crickets. We are waiting on the results from ten additional elected officials.
They will be asked on the record as well but we wanted to get a feel for their sentiments. Not sure if the numbers will match up. We will see.
Memphis, Knoxville, Middle Tennessee and Rural America, campers, are getting lambasted on this issue. We are too busy talking about things that are distractions.
You have a right to know what your government is doing.
Silence writes this:
If this keeps spreading, you won’t know about it. Also, you won’t know how many tax dollars you are paying to not know about it.
There should be no compromise.
I find this very disheartening, to say the least. I would recommend that more folks watch this.
I go back to that the Open Meetings Law is for citizens, not journalists. But no one is talking. We need to be talking about this.
Now. Not later.
Later is always after things change. This time, change is not for the good.
So, I went and talked to a retired alderman about it all that used to always talk, damn the torpedoes. (Incidentally, he’s a GOP guy). He didn’t know what was going on, which states that we (including myself) aren’t shaking the rafters hard enough.
He said this is disgraceful.
I agree.
Newscoma 
Thank you for pushing this issue, ‘Coma. We need dedicated media types to keep pressing the politicians on this.
Over a week ago, I emailed my state Senator and state Representative, asking both of them where they stand on the question of weakening the Open Meetings Law.
So far, I’ve received no response from either of them. Nada. Crickets.
We must keep making noise about this.
The Squeaky Wheel gets the oil is what my mother used to say.
She was right. We have to be diligent about this.
Right. NOW!
[…] Newscoma reports on her local officials anonymous wish to increase the amount of officials conferring with each other that would constitute an open meeting from two to four: At a recent county commission meeting, our chief staff writer extradonaire left a questionnaire for our local guys about changes in the Open Meetings Act. […]