Greenback mayor accused of mishandling records requests, failing to publish public meeting notices
 

Minutes from all Greenback Board of Mayor and Aldermen meetings from 2014 to present.

• A comprehensive list of bylaws followed by the city of Greenback and its government.
• A comprehensive list of all city ordinances enacted from 2014 to present.
• A current copy of any and all insurance policies held by the city of Greenback and the name of the company and individual who wrote each policy.
 
Russell’s request on Oct. 30 was for the following:
 
• A copy of the Greenback City Charter.
• A copy of the Greenback bylaws.
• A copy of board meeting minutes and agendas from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 2018.
• A copy of any and all city insurance policies.
 
Though they requested different records and different quantities of copies, Tittsworth and Russell both received response letters from the city, which estimated 139 pages to be copied at 15 cents per page and 20 total labor hours required for each request.

Ultimately, the city asked each citizen for $360.85 paid in cash before records would be copied.
 
“It was ridiculously high, and I know I wasn’t going to pay that,” Tittsworth said. “And it was the exact same as Lisa’s even though we asked for totally different things and numbers of things, so I knew it couldn’t be a fair estimate.”
 
When asked why he would estimate the requests at the same cost, Peeler initially denied that he had before being presented signed copies of the responses.
 
“OK. They’re the same and I apologize to you for that,” Peeler said. “We did what we did and we spent the same amount of hours and did the same for these two people right here so we put the same price down for everything.”
 
Peeler told The Daily Times that he hired two contract employees out of his own pocket to compile the records, and that neither Russell nor Tittsworth came to retrieve the records and that the copies were then signed, despite the response letters saying copies would not be made available until five business days after the fees were paid.
 
When asked why he would pay the contractors out of pocket, Peeler said he had promised to pay out of pocket but that the contracted workers requested that he not. Later, Peeler said to “forget about the women” (contractors) and that he had done it all himself.
 
When asked to estimate how many hours were spent in labor on the records, Peeler gestured to the response letters saying “Yes. Whatever we put on there.”
 
Peeler repeatedly refused to provide names of the contractors and dates of when the records were pulled.
 
Russell has filed a complaint with the Tennessee Comptroller Open Records Counsel, challenging the proposed fees for her and Tittsworth’s requests. According to a spokesman for the comptroller’s office, these complaints will usually prompt an inquiry process during which the office mediates between citizens and government bodies to assess a reasonable arrangement for receiving copies.
 
“The thing is there was not notice given of meetings and these minutes and agendas and things were not accessible to us, the citizens, like they should be,” Tittsworth said.
 
Peeler, the mayor of Greenback for 44 years, lost his re-election campaign on Nov. 6. to Dewayne Birchfield, a former alderman who won with 62 percent of the vote. Since the election, Birchfield and some residents of the town have accused Peeler and his wife Norma, the town’s recorder, treasurer and director of human resources, of stalling the transition of mayors by way of canceling public meetings and delaying Birchfield’s swearing the oath of office.
 
Residents told The Daily Times that a notice was posted in the post office that the Nov. 13 and Dec. 11 meetings of the Greenback Board of Mayor and Aldermen had been canceled. While the December meeting is regularly canceled for the holidays, many believed that the November meeting was canceled to postpone Birchfield’s swearing-in.
 
Peeler confirmed that he posted the notice of the canceled meeting but did not provide a reason.
 
When asked how the city usually posts public meeting notices, required by the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, Peeler answered “We don’t. We might advertise in January. We meet the second Tuesday of each month. For the rest of the year. That’s all we do.”
 
On a later phone call with The Daily Times, Peeler became flippant when asked if he knew that the notices were required by state law.
 
“I guess I’m guilty on all charges then, honey,” Peeler scoffed. “We post something if there was a change or a meeting was canceled and that’s it.”
 
After abruptly ending a phone conversation with The Daily Times, Peeler began to describe the conversation to a contracted employee, while unwittingly still on the telephone line and admitted he was aware it was illegal.
 
“She (reporter) asked if I knew it was illegal not to post monthly meeting notices,” Peeler told the worker while a reporter listened in. “I went ‘yes honey, I know that. What are they going to do? Fine me for it? I’m out.’”
 
Peeler also asked the employee, “How could I have charged too much for records if they never came and paid for them?”
When asked if he knew that he was still on the line, Peeler promptly ended the call without reply.
 
In a later phone call to The Daily Times, Peeler said he misspoke, now claiming that his wife had actually been posting meeting notices in the post office every month. Peeler also said that all of the complaints against him in the past two months were “political” and that it was “a few buttheads” out to get him, but that the citizens of Greenback as a whole understood him and had no problem with him in the decades he served as mayor.
 
Concerns about transparency with the mayor go back to at least the 1990s, according to a former Greenback alderman.
 
“We would post meeting notices on the bulletin board outside of the post office sometimes about an hour before the meeting was scheduled,” she told The Daily Times. “And with (Peeler) working in Oak Ridge, he’d cancel or move meetings last minute all the time.”
 
The alderman, who didn’t want to be named, also said that although Norma Peeler was employed as city recorder, she was never actually present at any meeting, but would write minutes from a tape recorder after the fact.
 
The former alderman also said that she and Peeler often “clashed” when she would question city funds, which she believed were being misused by the Peelers.
 
“I think he’s a crook and I don’t care for the man, obviously,” she said. “But more importantly, I think what they were up to was bad for the town and I hope things get better with the new mayor.”
 
Peeler said he and his wife will both be leaving their positions with the town on Dec. 27.

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12/17/18