Two officials say meeting should have been public
From The Oak Ridger
July 30, 2007
John Huotari
john.huotari@oakridger.com
Private tax policy meetings led by the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce probably should have been open to the public, a Knoxville media attorney and Nashville open-government advocate said last week.
But future public meetings and deliberations might "cure" any potential violations of the Tennessee "Sunshine Law," or Open Meetings Law, according to Rick Hollow, general counsel for the Tennessee Press Association in Knoxville, and Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government in Nashville.
Oak Ridge officials don't agree that the Chamber meetings should have been public, and they say the policy changes recommended there will be debated publicly at future City Council and Industrial Development Board meetings.
The private Chamber of Commerce meetings involved an 11-person, two-group task force that has drafted proposed changes to Oak Ridge's tax-abatement policies. Those policies are generally designed to attract new commercial and industrial businesses to Oak Ridge by offering property tax breaks for a limited period of time.
Occasionally controversial, the existing policies have been in place for several years and expire in September.
In order to be implemented, the recommended changes would have to be approved by the Oak Ridge City Council.
Oak Ridge City Manager Jim O'Connor asked the Chamber to lead the effort to revise the policies beginning late last year. The Chamber is a non-profit organization that helps Oak Ridge with economic development.
"We were asked to come back with some advice on what Council might want to do," said Parker Hardy, Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce president.
That request could have triggered a requirement to comply with the state's Sunshine Law, Hollow said.
"I believe there's a strong possibility that the Public Meetings Act should have applied to the task force meetings," he said. "If there's deliberation involving recommendations or action to be taken by the governing body of the public body, then the act is triggered."
In this case, the governing body could be either the City Council or the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board.
The IDB could consider the task force recommendations at an Aug. 6 meeting in the Municipal Building.
O'Connor disagreed that the task force's meetings should have been open.
"I do not believe the group of Chamber members involved in discussions of tax abatements are required to meet the Open Meetings Law since they are not an appointed committee of the Council or any other elected body," he said. "It is a group of citizens giving their opinions on a particular issue."
Oak Ridge officials said any group of citizens can make recommendations to Council, but Hollow drew a distinction between those who do so voluntarily and those who are asked to do so by the city.
If it had applied to the task force, the Sunshine Law would have required adequate notice of the group's meetings, which would have been open to the public, as well as meeting minutes and a record of votes cast. The intent of the law is to ensure that the formation of public policy is not conducted in secret.
But the task force meetings were not publicly announced, and The Oak Ridger did not learn of them until after they ended last spring.
Hardy said the task force has meeting notes, but he will not release them.
"This is not a public body," he said.
Why not discuss in public?
The task force put together by the Chamber included Hardy, a city staff member, two representatives of the Industrial Development Board -- Chairman Doug Janney and board member Bill Biloski -- as well as leaders and board members of seven other economic development agencies in Anderson and Roane counties.
It is not clear what route the task force recommendations might take before reaching Council. O'Connor said there is not a set process.
However, the process could affect legal interpretations. For example, Gibson said, if the city manager takes the task force recommendations and forwards them to Council, then the task force's meetings should have been open. On the other hand, if O'Connor uses the task force's proposals as one part of a recommendation he gives to Council, then the Sunshine Law might not have applied to the meetings.
In any case, the meetings should have been open, regardless of whether the law required them to be, Gibson said.
"The Sunshine Law aside, why would they not want to discuss this in public?" he asked. "Ultimately, it's going to impact public policy."
Though Hardy said the public policy debate will occur at the IDB and Oak Ridge City Council meetings, Hollow said certain criteria would have to be met in order for any potential Sunshine Law violations to be "cured" at subsequent public meetings. The public would have to have adequate notice of the meeting or meetings, there would have to be "substantial reconsideration" of the issues involved, and citizens would have to be given a chance to participate, he said.
Oak Ridge officials said they didn't deliberately violate the Sunshine Law, if there was a violation. Ultimately, a court would have to determine that.
No negative fallout?
O'Connor said he does not predict any negative fallout from the private task force meetings since the body that ultimately has to approve the policy changes -- the Oak Ridge City Council -- was not involved.
Council members were aware of the task force, Hardy said.
Hardy said he hopes questions about possible Sunshine Law violations do not reflect poorly upon the task force work, which was done without city resources or direction.
"I would hate to have that seen in a negative light," he said.
"I hope the community will see the business community responding to a request made by local government."
John Huotari can be contacted at (865) 220-5533. The Oak Ridger reporter is (was) also president-elect of the East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which is a charter member of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.
Copyright 2007 The Oak Ridger. All Rights Reserved.