Recent editorials from Tennessee newspapers:
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March 7
The Knoxville News Sentinel on lawmakers interfering with higher education:
Some Tennessee lawmakers cannot resist micromanaging the University of Tennessee and the state’s other higher education institutions.
The Senate Education Committee last week amended the UT budget to set aside $450,000 to create an “intellectual diversity” office on the Knoxville campus.
Last year lawmakers diverted a similar amount from the Office for Diversity and Inclusion.
State Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, who sponsored the amendment, said he did not want the Office for Diversity and Inclusion to return in its previous form.
Some senators say the existence of an intellectual diversity office would encourage more people in the university community with conservative views to speak out.
State Sen. Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, the chairwoman of the committee, said her office had fielded several complaints from UT students who felt pressured not to voice conservative views in class.
UT President Joe DiPietro, who was at the committee meeting, was blindsided by the amendment and asked to be given time to review the proposal.
A pair of high-profile incidents of student protests silencing conservative speakers on college campuses provides background to the effort.
At the University of California, Berkeley, a talk by alt-right editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled on Feb. 1 amid a riot. Last week, students at Middlebury College, a Vermont liberal arts school, disrupted an appearance by controversial social scientist Charles Murray. A faculty member was injured in the melee.
UT has not seen similar incidents, and DiPietro disputed the lawmakers’ claims that students or professors with conservative views cannot speak freely. He said students can report professors who they feel are discriminating against them because of their political views. Few reports are filed, he said.
“That’s an indicator that it must not be a big problem from the standpoint of the student bodies that we have across the system,” he said.
The amendment aims to solve a problem that does not exist. So, too, would a proposed new committee designed to look for inefficiencies in the state’s colleges and universities.
Knoxville Republican state Rep. Martin Daniel, an outspoken critic of the UT administration, is sponsoring the bill. Daniel said each audit would cost up to $3 million-5 million but would find more than the cost in savings.
However, another Knoxville Republican, state Rep. Eddie Smith, said the universities are required to conduct audits in the fall. Smith, who is vice chairman of the Education Administration and Planning Committee, said the idea should be put on hold. Rep. Roger Kane, R- Knoxville, who serves on the committee as well, also said he isn’t sure if the new committee is necessary.
The General Assembly has a duty to fund the state’s public higher education system, but should leave the decision-making on specific programs to the institutions themselves. The UT board of trustees - hardly an assortment of radicals - can govern the system without interference from Nashville.
Online:
https://www.knoxnews.com
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March 5
The Johnson City Press on a new housing program:
These are tense times for some Johnson City Housing Authority residents. As Press staff writer Sue Guinn Legg reported recently, changes in Washington, D.C., have put some key public housing redevelopment projects in Washington County, Tennessee, on hold.
That includes the redevelopment of JCDA’s Dunbar Community, which is the first of its public housing units scheduled for demolition, reconstruction and conversion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 subsidized rent program. This is part of HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration, a pilot program that allows local public housing authorities to experiment with a new way of meeting the capital improvement needs of this nation’s aging public housing units. This program allows public housing authorities to convert it’s current properties to Section 8 housing and provides income for maintaining and improving units.
Dunbar residents were originally scheduled to move to other housing developments to make way for the construction in January, but delayed HUD authorization has repeatedly pushed that to a later date. Now, some residets are all packed with no place to go.
The $13 million redevelopment planned for completion in phases over the next nine years calls for the renovation of 302 JCHA units and the demolition and replacement of 450 units. The Trump administration has put the HUD program on hold while it reviews the RAD pilot project, which was authorized by Congress in 2012. JCHA Executive Director Richard McClain told the Press he is still hopeful the pilot project will soon be back on track. Even so, he said there are other things that could sidetrack this novel new approach to building and maintaining public housing.
President Trump has promised to cut corporate taxes from 35 to 15 percent, which could make tax incentive financing for redevelopment of JCHA’s Fairview, Keystone, Carver, Pinecrest and Memorial Park communities much more difficult to find. With a reduced tax write off, McClain said banks will have less incentive to invest.
We urge the president and Congress to address these issues as they begin to put together a budget for the next fiscal year. The RAD program is a good example of the kind of public/private partnerships President Trump has called for to improve this nation’s infrastructure. It is a sustainable program that promises to better the upkeep of this nation’s public housing units, while lessening the burden on taxpayers.
Online:
https://www.johnsoncitypress.com
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March 7
The Commercial Appeal on accessing public records:
It has always been necessary for the people and their representatives in the news media to remain on guard against efforts to reduce transparency at every level of government, and 2017 is no exception.
Responding to a longtime goal among local governments to keep the public in the dark about their economic development deals - especially overly generous giveaways involving taxpayers’ money - SB1179/HB947 would keep certain county government records under wraps.
All that’s needed is for the chief executive officer, with the agreement of the county attorney, to determines that the information “is of such a sensitive nature that its disclosure or release would seriously harm the ability of the county to compete for or execute agreements or contracts for economic or community development.”
In other words, the open records law would not apply whenever local officials said it would not apply.
Somewhat more definitive, but still unnecessary and harmful to the cause of open government, SB442/HB732 would create an exemption from open records requests “for video taken by a law enforcement body camera that depicts interactions with minors, the interior of a healthcare or mental health facility, or the interior of a private residence where no crime has occurred.”
Creating safe zones where the actions of police would be exempt from public scrutiny, of course, defeats one of the main purposes of body cameras - giving the public a chance to assess the fairness and professionalism of law enforcement’s interactions with the public.
It’s not all bad news on the open government front. State Sen. Sara Kyle of Memphis and Rep. Bo Mitchell of Nashville, both Democrats, are sponsoring SB1102/HB1360, which would require charter schools to be subject to open records laws and certain financial reporting requirements.
That seems like a reasonable idea for the state’s growing and - one must not forget - publicly financed charter school industry. It remains to be seen how far the idea will get with the Republican-led General Assembly.
There are other positive developments.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Beth Harwell said at a recent panel discussion hosted by the Tennessee Press Association that they would be open to reviewing exemptions to the state’s 60-year-old public records law and considering a sunset provision on any new public records law exemptions.
Enforcement of the law started with just two exemptions - medical records of public hospital patients and security information held by state military officials. Now there are more than 350.
And it was announced in January that a branch of the State Comptroller’s Office has drafted a policy, set to take effect July 1, that guides the government’s proper response to public records requests and prohibits fees from being used as a way to discourage the public from asking questions.
For the most part, however, the default position for many legislators - maintain secrecy when you can get away with it - remains a constant source of concern for members of the public who want to keep track of the latest developments among their elected representatives.
The only remedy is to make it clear to officials that the people who elected them are watching and that they care.
Online:
https://www.commercialappeal.com
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