Sunshine and County Commission

Submitted by Mark Harmon on Fri, 2007/08/10 - 9:01pm.

Chancellor Fansler will rule on Knox County's motion for summary judgment on Tuesday, August 14th, at 9:30 a.m. in the Jack McElroy open meetings lawsuit. As you may know, the Law Director and the commission majority argue that no violation can occur in the absence of group large enough to constitute a quorum, and further that the subsequent votes make moot the suit. I disagree.

--Mark Harmon

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The paper has reported you

The paper has reported you lobbied fellow commissioners ouside of the meeting for support for Amy Broyles. So did you violate the sunshine law?

Mark Harmon's picture
Further details

The court, of course, will decide whether any of the many commissioners' efforts (including my very small role in asking others to consider a candidate being overlooked) violated the sunshine law. If such a thing happens, the remedy would be to void all the acts of Black Wednesday.

I will point out that the commission majority opted for a closed and insider system--no call for enabling legislation for a special election, no referendum to determine public preference, no formal commission meeting where candidates could state their cases and commissioners could ask questions of them. I supported all those ignored options.

I disagreed with the commission majority that those who were term limited could exist in a nebulous state where they were not present for the purpose of a vacancy, but could be present to vote on their successors.

Later I even sponsored a resolution for a consent agreement and "do-over" response to the McElroy lawsuit.
(Here's the Link...)

I voted for open process every time, and put together a well-attended candidate forum, the details of which were posted at length on this site.
(Here's the Link...)
(Here's another Link...)

All the best, Mark Harmon

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