Watching the watchers
Well, this has certainly been an interesting year for Knox County government.
Two main narratives have wound their way through local consciousness this year: the first, and longest running, is the controversy surrounding term limits on Knox County elected officials. The second, and more recent, is the group of scandals surrounding the handling of grants, purchasing cards, travel expenditures, and other funds by the County Mayor and his administration. Both scandals are complex, and both have given Knox County government a serious black eye.
The scandal surrounding term limits came to a head on January 31 of this year, when eight County Commissioners and four other elected officers were forced to resign their positions due to a decision by the Tennessee Supreme Court. The voters of Knox County approved a ballot measure in 1994 which enforced a two-term limitation on most county-wide elected officials, except judges and the School Board; this voter-approved law sat largely ignored by county government until a lawsuit came forth seeking to force the county to recognize the will of the people. The Tennessee Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the term limits initiative was indeed valid, and that it was immediately binding upon all elected Knox County officials sitting in office at that time. The decision required the immediate resignation of all sitting elected officials who were covered by the term limits law and who had already served two or more terms.
The decision sent an earthquake through Knox County; eight of the nineteen County Commissioners were required to resign, as were the County Sheriff, the Register of Deeds, the County Clerk, and the Trustee.
The law doesn't provide for a special election in a case such as this. Rather, the Supreme Court decided that the Knox County charter and Tennessee law both required County Commission to appoint replacements for those twelve vacated seats; these replacements would then fill those positions until the next county-wide election, which happens in 2008.
That's when the real trouble started.
On January 31, a day which has since become known as "Black Wednesday," Knox County Commission held a special meeting, the sole purpose of which was to appoint replacements for the vacated seats. Given the extraordinary circumstances, many people in Knox County expected and asked for an open, community-based process of nomination and debate on the appointments. Public meetings were held in only two of the county's districts, and a few nominations were accepted from the community, but even these proved to be mere tokens. By the time January 31 rolled around, the decisions on appointments had already been made.
To no one's surprise but to everyone's disgust, County Commission engaged in some crafty sleight of hand when appointing the replacements, all of which seemed to have been decided beforehand, outside earshot of the public. During several of the many "bathroom breaks" taken during the meeting, Commissioners were seen huddling together in the hallway, away from reporters or the public. It also became clear that the strategy for naming these replacements had been hammered out in private meetings before that day.
Randy Neal's live-blog of the meeting is indispensable for understanding the shenanigans. Two more summaries of the day's outcomes are here and here. For more details of the highjinks, see here, here, and here. One of the few honest Commissioners noted his thoughts here. The Wikipedia entry on the whole fiasco is pretty entertaining, too.
Tennessee's Open Meetings Law (also called the "Sunshine Law") requires that any meeting between elected officials of the same body must be open to the public, if that meeting includes deliberations on the public's business.
Jack McElroy, editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, subsequently filed suit against Knox County Commission, seeking to overturn the appointments made on Black Wednesday. The suit alleges that the appointments are invalid and that the Commission violated the Sunshine Law numerous times, on Black Wednesday and before.
The trial for McElroy's lawsuit begins September 11.
Today, Michael Silence posted a special request on his blog from Jack McElroy; the editor is asking for local bloggers to keep an eye on the proceedings and monitor the News-Sentinel's coverage of the trial. I volunteered to contribute to the effort.
Although I doubt I'll be able to attend the trial, I'll do my best to follow the proceedings as well as the coverage from KNS and elsewhere.
You can bet I'll have something to say about it.
This outreach to local bloggers seems to me to be based on two ideas: first, it appears that McElroy wants to ensure that his paper covers the trial objectively by enlisting "civilian" outsiders as watchdogs. Second, it seems like an effort by McElroy to integrate the print edition of the paper with the local blogging community, which Michael Silence called the "Great Rift Valley of the blogosphere."
(If Knox County is the Olduvai Gorge of blogging, does that make Glenn Reynolds the blogosphere's equivalent of the fossil Lucy? Just asking.)
I fully support both of those ideas, which is why I volunteered to participate in watching the coverage and providing feedback.
Stay tuned. This will be interesting.