2009 TCOG Annual Report
From: Frank Gibson Date: Dec. 8, 2009
With 2009 quickly coming to a close, I thought a near-end-of-year report would be in order. One board member suggested we have another meeting this year, but because some calendars were filled with holiday schedules I’m shooting for early January. I will let you know. Happy Holidays!!!
FINANCES: We passed a budgetary milestone last week when the Chattanooga Times Free Press gift put us over our revenue projections for the year. The TFP gift was for the 2010 budget year, but we have two outstanding pledges this year. The three gifts combined give us a cushion for almost a year of operations. The $57,226 received to date includes a $12,250 project grant from NFOIC to publish our “Keys to Open Government” sunshine manual early next year and to do needed work on www.tcog.info.
CALLS: We have fielded 232 calls (thru 12/7) for guidance, advice, and quotes for news stories. We started seriously logging calls in January. In the six months before that, we had 66. Of the 232 calls in 2009, 61 (27%) came from 6 TCOG member newspapers; 68 (30%) came from 38 non-member newspapers; 25 (11%) came from 17 broadcast news operations; 44 (19%) came from citizens; 13 (6%) came from the Associated Press, and 19 (7%) came from public officials and out-of-state media.
OUTCOMES: The calls have dealt with several issues where the information we provided about the law led to positive outcomes. For example, efforts to ban cameras from school board meetings in several communities were abandoned after we pointed out legal problems with the rule. The rule had been recommended by the TSBA.
“KEYS TO OPEN GOVERNMENT – A Sunshine Guide” — A lot of data collected by logging the calls and responding to queries will be helpful in preparing the manual. I continue to gather sample guides from other states and to work on an outline for Tennessee. It needs to go beyond the simple text of the law because questions are usually more complex. It is a combination manual and web-based guide and should be useful in future training presentations. I expect to complete the project no later than the second quarter of 2010.
ADVOCACY: We will have a clearer picture next month on what will be in store in the next legislative session. I expect we’ll be faced with some old, recurring issues, including police incident reports, records in electronic form, and bills to allow public notices to be posted on government web sites. There may be an effort to allow charges for redacting sensitive records before inspection. That is brought on by large requests, usually from citizens who ask for copies and then change their mind when they discover the government can’t charge to inspect records.
We feel there will be another attempt to close conceal and carry gun permit records to the same degree that DMV records are now closed by federal law.
EDUCATION: We did presentations to about 275 people in 2009, including at 3 state universities, 2 workshops at the TPA Winter Institute, 1 newsroom training seminar, and one CLE program. That number is down some from prior years and reflects travel budget reductions and a hectic, prolonged legislative session where we had to deal with a record 20 separate pieces of legislation. The 275 also does not include the 232 calls we got during the year.
