October 2006 Cocke Fight A small battle with big-issue roots comes to an end By Sara C. Shoemaker
In May, local business owner Greg Fodness won a two-year legal
battle with the Newport/Cocke County Economic Development Commission over the availability of that agency’s records.
Fodness’ simple request for historical documents regarding a nearby property he was curious about (the former Virco building in the Cocke County Industrial Park) turned into a politically motivated scuffle of what he considered “us” versus “them”—“them” referring to those trying to do business in the county who are not part of the small government’s inner circle.
The South Florida native and long-time Cocke County resident called on his friend and Knoxville attorney David Hamilton to light a fire under the EDC for allegedly denying Fodness’ request. The lawsuit claimed the EDC was in violation of a Tennessee state law requiring organizations that operate on funding from taxpayers to keep their records open to the public during regular business hours.
“Us damned outsiders come in and don’t want to be part of the good ol’ boy system. This turned into a battle of the wills,” Fodness says.
EDC head Donald Hurst, who now doubles as president of the Cocke County Partnership, agrees that things got ugly while the lawsuit ensued. He says the EDC is a public-private partnership entity but an exception to the state’s open records law statutes. With only himself as a full-time staffer, he argued it would be impossible to satisfy impromptu records requests without making an appointment.
“This was a frivolous lawsuit. We were never anti-open records,” Hurst says. After hearing both sides in what seemed like an easily solved case, Chancellor Telford Forgety told the two parties to go into the hall and make an appointment. Instead, the EDC decided to prove it was exempt from the open records law, and the case continued.
Today, Fodness is still a land and rental property owner and spends his time restoring muscle cars. And though he won the case, he has yet to see the EDC records he requested so long ago, saying he’s not re-requested them, but is just glad that no one else will be denied access. “It’s just the law. There’s no wiggle room.”
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