On the website of the daily paper is a story that Knox County Commissioner Larsen Jay has placed an item asking to remove Evelyn Gill from the joint County Commission School Board Committee on the April Commission agenda due to the legal lawsuit settlement recently made public of Gill’s actions as a Special Education teacher.
Jay says in the daily paper story he has attempted to reach Gill by phone since Thursday. This is a violation of the Sunshine Law. Commissioners are prohibited from meeting to deliberate to a conclusion on an item before Commission.
Had Gill agreed to resign she and Jay would have deliberated to a conclusion.
Knox County Commissioner at Large Seat 10 Larsen Jay
School Board Members Evetty Satterfield and Terry Hill agree with Jay’s resolution. Actually, they probably could not have discussed it with Gill because Chancellor Fansler’s Order said that Knox County can not use an intermediary,
I have text messaged Jay for a response. He text messaged back, “There is no violation of the Sunshine Law – there was no deliberation about something we would be voting on. I was attempting to contact her to ask her to resign from the Committee. Any further discussion will happen at the next workshop. Also the JEC doesn’t vote on anything.”
“I was asking her to resign before filing the motion. If she had resigned I wouldn’t have filed the motion.“
The deliberation of asking her to resign, then not filing a resolution, in my humble opinion is the deliberation to a conclusion that the Sunshine Law attempts to prohibit.
I agree with the resolution, I disagree with violating the sunshine law of her to step down. Conduct the public business in public.
The good news for Jay is Gill did not call him to deliberate.
