It is a brilliant ploy, instead of returning a surplus to its rightful owners,  it is quickly spent creating a deficit the following year where there would have been none.

The annual song and dance, one year predicting the shutdown of services, the next a spending spree, is becoming an insult to the intelligence of Tennesseans and a signal for management change.

That's what I think. What do you think?

Again in Nashville

Despite legal safeguards to ensure honest government, none are worth a pigs ear if accountability can't be guaranteed by complete transparency. If official actions cannot be monitored then government will become corrupt. The reason open government legislation has been proposed for Tennessee is because Nashville was becoming corrupted and the fear was that the corruption was filtering down to the local level. The Tennessee Waltz corruption scandal is well known nation wide and included officials from Cleveland.

On the one hand the public was demanding reform but corrupt officials on the other were supporting the status-quo or less oversight. The Tennessee Bureau of  Investigation has become synonymous with investigating official corruption and malfeasance to death without prosecution or allowing the Statute of Limitations to expire, so they cannot be counted on for oversight. Only the public and the FBI are formidable enough to ensure compliance, the public with the help of the media being the first line of defense.

Legislation presently navigating Nashville, House Bill HB3637 and Senate Bill SB3280 (see page one this issue) which was originally intended to strengthen open records law, is being scuttled by the very people it is designed to keep on the straight and narrow. Public employee, and local and state government associations like the Tennessee Municipal League (TML) are fighting like hell to diminish the effect of the new legislation, and because they are high profile in Nashville they seem to be having their way.

What does this mean for the people of Tennessee? It means that corrupt state and local officials, elected and appointed, will be able to avoid detection by limiting public knowledge of what they are doing.

Regardless of the excuses given to limit access to records, the aim is to keep the public in the dark and to avoid getting caught misbehaving. Organizations like the Tennessee Municipal League (TML), who are primarily funded with public money, are detrimental to the wellbeing of open government and are covertly working against Tennesseans who fund them. This state of affairs has gone unchallenged for years but the fact is true, and the Cleveland City Council is among its staunchest supporters, with your money of course.

The question is, if local government is not corrupt, if members of the Cleveland City Council are not corrupt, why are they supporting efforts to remove your right to know what they are doing?

They make pleasant noises of how important the people of Cleveland are to them and how public spirited they are but the truth is they want you out of the equation and uninformed. I believe the recent attack on this publication by the Cleveland City Council, trying to put us out of business, was not about the citizens of Cleveland but primarily about them wanting to silence your right to know using racism as a convenient excuse. If they are not corrupt, let the citizens see the records to prove it and stop supporting the TML with tax dollars.

That's what I think. What do you think?

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