Knoxville Mayor And Team Intentionally Kept Taxpayers In The Dark About Next Police Chief

Image Credit: Mayor Indya Kincannon / Facebook

The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –

A $43,000 bill, signed off on by the Knoxville City Council to locate the city’s next police chief, purchased a full-service package from The Police Executive Research Forum.

With paying an outside firm to locate and hire the city’s next police chief, Knoxville’s Democratic Mayor, Indya Kincannon and her team believed they could bypass Tennessee’s open record laws and keep taxpayers in the dark.

Reportedly, the City did not want taxpayers to find out the Police Chief candidate’s names and used the contract with the firm as a shield to deny multiple open records requests from local news outlets for details about the search and potential candidates.

The firm used by the City is called The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) which was contracted to provide a needs assessment, community engagement, advertising and recruiting for the position, candidate screening, and eventually submitting a list of their top choices for Police Chief.

Knox News reports that Mayor Kincannon and a committee that was sworn to secrecy created a scheme to avoid creating written documents that could be accessed by the press and citizenry through Open Records Requests.  They asked PERF to only show hiring documents, such as resumes, in video conferences so employees of the city could plausibly state that there were no documents available to review.

During the summer, Knox News sued the city on behalf of taxpayers to view records related to the Police Chief search.  

John Weaver, Knox County Chancellor, uncovered the City’s strategy through a line of questioning in court directed at the city’s hired attorney, Chris McCarty.

McCarty was hired by the city to fight the open records lawsuit but he eventually admitted in court that PERF was hired in an effort to avoid public disclosures that are required by law.

During the hearing, McCarty maintained that the city has no records of Police Chief candidates or finalists.  However, the agreement with PERF explicitly states that Mayor Kincannon can request records for up to three years.

About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative  ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career.  Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others.  He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History.  Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com

6 thoughts on “Knoxville Mayor And Team Intentionally Kept Taxpayers In The Dark About Next Police Chief

  • November 29, 2022 at 6:22 pm
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    That’s what happens when you let liberal trash take control of your town.

    Reply
    • November 30, 2022 at 2:58 pm
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      SO VERY TRUE you would think voters would know by now you can not TRUST THE DEMOCRATS

      Reply
  • November 29, 2022 at 6:51 pm
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    So what now? They just get away with it?

    Reply
  • November 29, 2022 at 11:30 pm
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    This is why I will not live in a city
    They get way they voted for. Liberal cities will never learn. This is why every city no matter where it is is run by liberals. People are not smart enough to vote them out and now with all the fraud you can’t get them out

    Reply
  • November 30, 2022 at 3:22 am
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    They get away with it if the people that voted them in to office don’t wake up. And they won’t because main steam media, twitter and other social networks don’t run real news. Just stories.

    Reply
    • November 30, 2022 at 3:02 pm
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      I have to agree with you, until we get rid of fake news, and we get the voters to read up on who they vote for, things will not change. JUST look at this last election, half the country voted for the DNC, HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET

      Reply

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