Newly appointed Commissioner Victoria DeFreese remarked in last week's Commission meeting that she had received "countless" e-mails, faxes, letters, and phone calls regarding the recent p-card audit. Now, the Mayor's office has made a formal request to Commissioner DeFreese under the Tennessee Open Records Act requesting access to copies of all correspondence including letters, faxes, and emails she has received regarding the p-card audit, and also phone records and any logs or notes related to phone calls she has received about the audit. Not sure why they would want to keep poking this hornet's nest with a stick. At any rate, I guess somebody will have to count them now. Wonder how many were from Paul Pinkston? UPDATE: DeFreese responds [1], will hold a press conference at 3PM to discuss the request. According to the report, her position is that the correspondence is not public record. There's also something about "communication 'forged' by citizens." Probably not what she meant to say. UPDATE: WBIR contacts an expert [2] who says if the correspondence was received in transaction of public business then it is public record, adding "Ethically speaking, I don't know why (Commissioner DeFreese) would want to withhold it." Good question. Boxes and boxes of correspondence would certainly be embarrassing for the mayor. Why not just produce them? UPDATE: From the KNS [3]: "At any rate, DeFreese said she doesn't have any of the e-mails or other communications because she gets so many she doesn't keep them." Seriously? Game, set, match.