No WhiteWash!

The Show blog is looking for someone to help with open records requests.  See below

We need help! We are looking for people to make open records request to our local governments. Its easy, but you have to stay on top or they wont give them up.

This will be a volunteer position. We do this at a cost and make no money, we do it for love of town, State, and Country.

Contact us here

“The General Assembly hereby declares it to be the policy of this State that the formation of public policy and decisions is public business and shall not be conducted in secret.” Title 8, Chapter 44 (T.C.A. 8-44-101-201)

This blog was started in February 2007 with the title of “Kingsport, TN Government”.  The name was later changed to “No WhiteWash!”, a name less focused on one local government.  We are still focused on Kingsport, TN Government and have expanded into issues that affect Sullivan County, North East Tennessee area, and the State as they are in a lot of case interrelated.

The direction of this blog for the future will be for the average citizen and not the elites who choose to run things for their own self-interest.  There will be no favoritism toward a political party in this blog.  WARNING:  If you are a elected official or running for office and make statements that you can’t back up or not exactly telling the full story, then this blog will expose them.  If you are running for office or an elected official who wants to use this blog for political advantage, then I would suggest you go elsewhere to peddle your story.  This blog is for the people!!

This little blog now has readership that is around 1,000 visits per day and that number could be much higher because other blogs re-publish this blog posts to their blogs.  There have been over 1,700 posts written in this blog since inception and the posts are not forgotten as they slide down the page as newer post take their place on the first page.  The search traffic coming to this blog is very large because this blog posts are indexed on all of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc).  All of the posts go into a RSS news feed where readers can read the posts without having to visit the blog.  The folks using the RSS feed amounts to many hundred per day.

Over the last few years I have seen more local people become more vocal about expressing their views concerning how the local governments operate.  They express their views in the comments areas in the local newspapers, blogs, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc)  There have been many local blogs that have been started in the North East Tennessee area in the last few years and I think we will see more of it.

Blogs do get a lot of readership.  The Tea Party protests got their start from blogs and with very little help from local media.

The Show blog is another local blog that has come online and also has it own local talk radio show on Monday and Thursday from 6-8pm on WMCH AM1260.  Local issues are discussed in this radio talk show and in many cases the posts from this blog are discussed and the radio talk show does allow callers to phone in and express their views. 

I have learned much about the City of Kingsport government on how they operate.  The research that I have done has me very concerned about how the “elites” control the city and do things that are in their self-interests.  I do have a concern about their lack to fully understand the problems the area has such as low median wages, declining population, high unemployment, lack of good paying jobs, and young adults leaving the area to find work, etc.

I also have a concern how the mayor selects political appointees to serve on different committees so he can be assured that he get what he wants.  The reporting in the Kingsport Times-News is almost always, in my view, protecting the city officials.  One has to understand that if they reported anything negative about the city, then it would reflect on the upper management at the Kingsport Times-News.  This is because there are many of the top management at the Times-News that are Mayor Dennis Phillips’ political appointees.

We could go on about how certain people decide who should run for political office and then campaign for them and put up the money for them to get elected.

We could talk about the Ridgefield County Club elites or look at the details of the spending of city money by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, but these could be posts for another day.

There have been many that have sent this blog information concerning the operation of our local governments and I want to say thank you.  Please continue reporting as you have in the past.

If you have anything to report concerning the below areas, feel free to use the email icon below to report it. The source of the information will be kept confidential.

• City of Kingsport, TN
• City of Bristol, TN
• Sullivan County, TN
• North East, TN
• Tennessee Government

Issues such as wasteful spending, local elections, annexation, ethics, crime, conflicts of interest, backroom deals, open government, abuse of taxpayer money, etc., are examples to report, but not limited to those listed.

Ironically, one of the outcomes of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government’s 2004 public records audit, the first such statewide audit in Tennessee, is that lawmakers are filing more bills to close records.

In this year’s session, Tennessee legislators filed three times as many exemptions to open meetings, open records laws than normal.

Read more via Spotlighting “Sunshine issues” also spurs open government opponents – Random Mumblings.

Mac McLean wrote an excellent article Many Officials Confused about Disclosure Forms’ Rules in the Bristol Herald Courier. Mac McLean did some great research and I encourage you to read the entire article. 

The law requires that they report all private income, but not what they receive for serving in the public office they hold. The law states that as a general rule, any private income that must be reported to the IRS should be included on the form, including wages, capital gains, lecture fees, dividends, business income, bank account interest, payments from annuities, and trust income.

…..Sullivan County Commissioner Buddy King of Bristol said he “filled out the form according to how it read,” but when shown a copy, he said he didn’t remember filling one out.

Read more via Many Officials Confused about Disclosure Forms’ Rules | TriCities.

This blog on Feb 23, 2009 posted the following concerning Commissioner Buddy King.  Sullivan County Commissioner ethics exposed

There was another Commissioner that voted for the above resolution whose name is James “Buddy” King from Bristol. Apparently, open government is not important to Commissioner James “Buddy” King for wanting to discuss the “peoples’ business” in private.

Upon checking the “Statement of Disclosure of Interests” submitted by Commissioner James “Buddy” King, there are some areas of concern.

The 2009 “Statement of Disclosure of Interest” filed by Commissioner James “Buddy” King on January 14, 2009, shows no income, investments, etc.

2009 Statement of Disclosure of Interests (ss-8005) (filed 2009-01-14) Witness by Larry Bailey

The 2008 “Statement of Disclosure of Interest” filed by Commissioner James “Buddy” King on January 14, 2008, again shows no income, investments, etc. and is essentially the same as year 2009, except that James “Buddy” King was his own witness.

2008 Statement of Disclosure of Interests (ss-8005) (filed 2008-01-14) Witness by James “Buddy” King

It is very unusual that Commissioner James “Buddy” King would not have any income to declare on his 2009, 2008 disclosures filed with the State. However, in the 2007 “Statement of Disclosure of Interest” for Commissioner James “Buddy” King, it gets interesting.

On page 916 in the link 2007 Disclosure of Interests for Local Office Holders and Candidates it states the following sources of income, investments, and lobbying activities.

Sources of Income

SOCIAL SECURITY, ORNL RETIREMENT, MATERIALS ENGINEERING & TESTING Investments

TEAMSTERS RETIREMENT, STATE RETIREMENT (SULLIVAN COUNTY)

Lobbying:

WALMART, BB&T BANK,CSX RAILROAD, SPRINT/NEXTEL

Why are you not disclosing your income, investments, lobbying activities for the last two years Commissioner James “Buddy” King? This information is the publics’ business and plus, I think it is the law that it needs to be disclosed.

I find it particularly interesting to find that Commissioner James “Buddy” King is an elected official of Sullivan County and yet was involved and could still be involved in lobbying activities.

Continuing a commitment to government transparency, Governor Phil Bredesen today announced a new TN.gov Web site where citizens can see how tax revenues are spent.  The new site is www.tn.gov/opengov.

“This makes it easier for taxpayers to access information by aggregating data in a centralized place on the state’s Web site,” Bredesen said. “The commitment to openness and transparency I made from the beginning of my administration takes another important step forward with the introduction of this new tool for citizens to access information about state spending.”

Information available at Tennessee’s Open Government site includes:

• Vendor payments, organized quarterly and by department
• Travel expenses paid to all state workers, including cabinet-level out-of-state travel
• Employee salary information

The site is managed by the Department of Finance & Administration, which includes the state’s budget office, the state accounting and payroll divisions as well as the state’s information technology network.

“Establishing this site to make basic information available to taxpayers is part of our continuing effort to make it easier for citizens to see how their taxpayer dollars are being used,” Commissioner Dave Goetz said. “We look forward to gathering input from the General Assembly and citizens of Tennessee as we develop the next levels of information we can make available online.”

The new site brings together information already available, but now accessible at one location, such as public meetings involving state agencies, state audits and financial reports, state contract opportunities and tax collections, as well as budget information.

Citizens can also access a link on the site to give feedback to state officials on the information made available, and what they’d like to see made available as the site matures.

Since taking office in 2003, Bredesen has pushed open the doors of government spending by holding open budget hearings, streamed live on the Internet.  Bredesen also led the move toward a higher level of ethics in government by establishing an ethics committee in 2003 that led to the creation of the Tennessee Ethics Commission.  He set new demands for disclosure from executive branch leadership employees and also pushed for more online access to information related to physicians and health care facilities, as well as information on certain criminal offenders.

There are many Web sites focusing, in whole or in part, on Freedom of Information and open-government issues. While we’ve listed many here, we’re sure there are some we’ve missed, so please be sure to e-mail us with suggestions.

Interested in working for transparency? Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the Sunlight Foundation’s transparency jobs postings.

• Alabama Center for Open Government
• American Society of Newspaper Editors
• The Associated Press and Freedom of Information
• The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida
• The Lucy Burns Institute
• Californians Aware: The Center for Public Forum Rights
• California First Amendment Coalition
• Center for Democracy and Technology
• Coalition of Journalists for Open Government
• Common Cause
• Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission
• Copley First Amendment Center
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy
• Foster Pepper Local Open Government Blog for Washington State
• The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center
• Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas
• The Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri
• The First Amendment Foundation
• First Amendment Project
• Get Grandpa’s FBI File
• Georgia First Amendment Foundation
• Government Attic
• Hawaii Office of Information Practices
• Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan: Ensuring Honest and Open Govt. Resources
• Indiana Coalition for Open Government
• Indiana Public Access Counselor
• Investigative Reporters and Editors
• Iowa Freedom of Information Council
• The James Madison Project
• Judicial Watch
• Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project
• Maryland Foundation for Open Government
• Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government
• The Media Coalition
• Minnesota Information Policy Analysis Division
• Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information
• Missouri Attorney General’s Sunshine Law Page
• National Coalition Against Censorship
• National Freedom of Information Coalition
• National Institute on Money in State Politics
• National School District Honor Roll
• The National Security Archive
• New England First Amendment Center
• New Jersey Foundation for Open Government
• New Mexico Foundation for Open Government
• Newspaper Association of America
• New York State Committee on Open Government
• North Carolina Open Government Coalition
• Ohio Attorney General’s Site for Sunshine Laws and Public Records Resources
• OpenCongress.org
• OpenTheGovernment.org
• Open Oregon: A Freedom of Information Coalition
• Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette First Amendment Fourm
• Project on Government Oversight
• Project Vote Smart
• Public Citizen
• Radio-Television News Directors Association
• ReadTheBill.org
• The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
• Society of Professional Journalists’ Freedom of Information Resources
• South Dakotans for Open Government
• Student Press Law Center
• Sunlight Foundation
• Sunshine in Government Initiative
• Sunshine in Missouri
• Sunshine Review
• Tennessee Coalition for Open Government
• Texas Attorney General’s Open Government Pages
• The Thomas Jefferson Center for Freedom of Expression
• The Virginia Coalition for Open Government
• Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council
• Washington Coalition for Open Government
• Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna
• WatchOurCity.com

A bill that would exempt the emails of state legislators and their staff from the Tennessee Open Records Act has died today in the Tennessee General Assembly.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Henry Fincher (D-Cookeville), withdrew the legislation at the opening of a House subcommittee hearing. Fincher’s bill would have seriously undermined the public’s right to obtain important information to hold their elected representatives accountable.

“It is fitting that the bill most hostile to open government in Tennessee would die this week,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson, noting that Monday, March 16, marked the beginning of “Sunshine Week.”

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. All week, news media, civic groups, libraries, schools and nonprofit organizations like the Tennessee Center for Policy Research will highlight the need for open, transparent and accountable government.

Unfortunately, it is still very difficult for the public to obtain information from their elected representatives in Tennessee. For example, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research was forced to sue the state after the Department of Finance and Administration failed to turn over public records.

“If my organization has to drag government officials into court just to obtain public documents, does the average citizen have any shot at holding the government accountable?,” Johnson asked.

Thankfully, several bills are appearing before legislative committees this week to create a more open and accountable government in Tennessee. The Taxpayer Transparency Act, a bill to put all state spending online, will be heard on Wednesday in both the House and Senate.

In celebration of “Sunshine Week,” the Tennessee Center for Policy Research encourages all state legislators to support these efforts to promote government transparency and accountability in Tennessee.

By Jane E. Kirtley

Kirtley is the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota. An attorney and former journalist, she was the executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press from 1985-1999.

Do you want to know what your government is up to? What it’s doing with your tax dollars? When it will propose a new health care policy? Where it’s sending young men and women to fight? How it’s regulating banks and bailing out the financial industry? Why children in our public schools aren’t performing as well as their counterparts in other countries?

Of course you do. It’s your right to know these things. Dozens of state and federal laws say so.

But governments have a million excuses for resisting those laws. They’ll say that disclosing information will endanger national security. Or invade someone’s privacy. Or make it tougher to compete in the global marketplace.

Some of those excuses may sound pretty reasonable. Once in a while, they’re probably justified.

But most of us are at least a little bit skeptical when the government says “No, you can’t have that information.” The government’s business is the public’s business. Unless there’s a very good reason, we expect government to tell us what it’s doing, and how it’s doing it. In other words, we expect it to be accountable to us. After all, we’re paying for it.

The Bush administration didn’t see it that way. It expanded government’s power to conceal more and more information about its operations, while increasing its authority to collect more and more information about each of us. Many state and local governments followed suit. Secrecy became the order of the day.

President Obama says he wants to change all that. On his first day in office, he issued a series of policy statements declaring “a new era of openness.” He’s promised that “transparency and the rule of law will be touchstones of this presidency.” He’s pledged to use the Internet to encourage the public to help create government policy.

Whether you voted for Obama or not, this is good news. If you’re a supporter, you’ll expect Obama to maintain the two-way flow of information that characterized his presidential campaign. If you’re not, you’ll want to keep tabs on everything his administration does. These policies will help make that possible.

Everything won’t change overnight. Undoing years of secrecy will take time, and some of Obama’s initiatives have already prompted both praise and criticism. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement in February that he would revise the 1991 policy forbidding the news media to photograph flag-draped caskets containing military remains arriving at Dover Air Force base is just one example.

Some view the new policy as a way to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and to remind the public of the cost of war. Others contend that the media’s presence will distress surviving family members unnecessarily, and encourage the use of the images for political purposes.

Similar debates will continue on the state and local level, too. Should the public have access to concealed weapons permits? Should government employees’ e-mails be subject to disclosure? Or would this violate individuals’ privacy?

Different states will answer these questions in different ways. But the president is right: we should presume that government information is open to all of us, unless there’s a very good reason why it shouldn’t be. For much too long, government officials have acted as if this decision belongs to them alone. They concluded that what they’re doing is none of our business, and told us to get lost.

The president’s directives have sent a clear message. It’s time to open the doors of government, and let the public in. And we won’t settle for anything less.