Off Limits

Red-Light Redemption. Back in May, we reported that traffic lights in downtown Nashville were being set in such a way that violated state law and increased the number of tickets that Metro cops got to write (“Yellow Light Blues,” May 11). Local entertainer Joe Savage received three tickets in as many months for running red lights downtown. He appealed the tickets after becoming convinced that the county had stacked the deck against motorists by making yellow lights so short that it would be impossible to cross an intersection while one was lit. A few weeks ago, a Davidson County Circuit Court judge agreed. “This court does not believe that Defendant Savage had the benefit of the three-second minimum required of yellow lights in this state,” wrote Judge Amanda McClendon in her judgment for Savage. Three seconds is the legal minimum for the duration of yellow lights in Tennessee. In both our story and at Savage’s trial, representatives for the Department of Public Works—which sets and maintains county traffic signals—said that it was physically impossible for timers on the lights to be set below the three-second interval. It seems that the judge believed this but noted that the Public Works department “had not timed the interval of the yellow light to determine that it actually was working at three seconds.” Though happy with the outcome of his case, Savage is not done with this issue. He says he’s taking the matter before the Metro Council. “They’re handing out tickets wholesale,” he says of Metro traffic cops. “They’re supposed to protect and serve, not fleece us for money.” Cloudy Skies for Sunshine Committee. The group charged with overhauling Tennessee’s “Sunshine Laws” says it can’t possibly present its recommendations by Friday, Dec. 1, the deadline the state legislature imposed back in the spring. “We really just got a late start, to be frank,” says Sen. Joe Haynes, a Goodlettsville Democrat and one of four state lawmakers on the committee. “The more we delved into it, the more we realized the current law is somewhat vague, and we didn’t have time to look at what other states had done.” That could be because the group met only three times to discuss the complex topic before its deadline. The General Assembly passed a bill in May creating the committee to examine the state’s open meetings and open records laws, and although the legislation called on the study group to “timely report its findings,” nearly five months passed before all of its 18 members were even appointed. The group didn’t meet for the first time until October, and this week its members voted unanimously to postpone their deadline by an entire year. And while Frank Gibson—executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government—says he’s disappointed with the delay, it’s better than the alternative. “There was an effort to just kill the committee,” Gibson says. “The first proposal was just to say that this committee couldn’t finish its work.” But instead, Sen. Randy McNally, a Republican from Oak Ridge, suggested keeping the group intact and extending the deadline. Now it’s up to Sen. McNally, the highest-ranking legislator on the committee, to ensure the group meets often enough (there is no set schedule) to accomplish its goal by the new deadline. Of course, should there actually be any meetings, they will be open to the public.