Knox County Law Director John Owings has issued a recommendation to the Tennessee Legislature's Open Meetings Subcommittee [1].

In his petulant response to the recent trial and questions raised, he proposes to basically rewrite the Open Meetings act to make everything that happened on Jan. 31st A-OK.

There's just too much good stuff to single out one best part, but this is pretty good:

Please make it clear that if there is no discussion about a matter at a meeting, but instead, a motion, second, a call for discussion, no discussion, and a vote, that is not a violation of the act.

Why not go ahead and make it "a motion, a second, a recess to go discuss it in the hall and decide you need another vote and get a judge down to swear somebody in and when you get caught doing that give somebody else a copy of the oath and directions to the judge's office to get sworn in and seated and THEN vote" it is not a violation.

(They way it's written, is Owings suggesting that people might think things have already been decided if there's no discussion? Where would they get that idea?)

The whole thing is based on the premise that county business will grind to a halt because commissioners are now afraid to speak to one another. Nobody who has been paying attention is aware of any such prohibition in the Open Meetings Act. Who does The county law director represent -- Knox County and its citizens, or Scooby and Lumpy?