Tenn. panel fails to post meeting notices

Commission regulates state law enforcement

NASHVILLE — A state commission that recently was in court over allegations it crafted an immigration policy in secret hasn’t regularly posted notices of upcoming meetings on its website during at least the past two years.

The Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission is the primary regulatory body for Tennessee law enforcement and usually meets monthly. Its duties include developing standards for law enforcement agencies statewide and certifying and decertifying officers.

An Associated Press review found there was no link to the commission’s meeting notices from its primary webpage at tn.gov/commerce/let/post.

Meeting notices from three months in 2010 and one in 2011 were posted in another section of the state government’s website, but they were difficult to find. One of those notices was not posted until after a meeting had started, according to the posting date and time listed at the bottom of the notice. Another was posted less than 24 hours before the meeting it announced.

A few days after AP asked questions about whether POST was complying with the legal requirement to give the public adequate notice of meetings, notices of upcoming meetings appeared on the commission’s main web page.

A POST spokesman would not discuss how the commission provides notice of its meetings, citing a lawsuit that recently forced the commission to overturn a jail policy it had created at meetings that were not announced to the public.

State law requires public bodies like the POST Commission provide “adequate public notice” of meetings but it does not specify how far in advance of a meeting the notice must be posted or where it must be posted. A few legal rulings on the issue have not offered very concrete guidance either. That means it is up to the individual government panels to determine how to comply with the vaguely worded mandate.

Frank Gibson, the public policy director of the Tennessee Press Association, said the posting of meeting notices is more than just a technical requirement. It’s important.

“The government can have a tremendous impact on people’s lives, from deciding whether to let a gas station open on the corner from where you live to raising your taxes. The legislature, when it passed in Sunshine Law in 1974, recognized that the public has a right to know what is going to be discussed.”

The issue of the POST Commission’s practices came to light after the group was ordered by the state legislature to develop a process by which local jailers could question detainees about their immigration status.

Although immigrant rights advocates were deeply interested in that process, there was no public notice of the meetings where the new policy was created.