Making local government more accessible : administration of Tennessee's public records and public meeting laws by local government officials

The right of citizens to have access to the official records of their local governing bodies and to the regular and special meetings of those bodies is basic to their ability to make informed judgments about the actions of their elected officials. Tennessee has two very comprehensive statutes, the Open Records Law and the Open Meetings Law, which guarantee to the state's citizens this "right to know."

The effectiveness of such laws, however, is largely dependent on the understanding and compliance of local officials in each municipality and county in the state. A review of reference material on the two laws such officials could use revealed that there is no one-source reference, such as a handbook, available.

The purpose of this study was to develop a handbook on the open meetings and open records laws for use by city and county officials responsible for compliance with the laws, and for the local governments' attorneys who must advise these officials.

In preparing the handbook, the author relied on the statutes themselves, what already has been written about provisions of the laws in Tennessee and about similar laws in other states, and the responses of an informal panel of local government officials and municipal law consultants with the University of Tennessee s Municipal Technical Advisory Service.