Friday, April 20, 2012
Guv'ment Cumming mayor needs briefing on Georgia's sunshine laws
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 11:01 AM
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens is investigating whether Cumming Mayor Ford Gravitt violated the state's sunshine laws when he told citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale she was not allowed to videotape a recent public meeting. Here's video of the incident shot by AboutForsyth.net Tisdale, which is awkward like you'd expect (skip to around 2:00):
The mayor later told WSB-TV's Mike Petchenik he thought the Open Records Act — which he says he supports — only permitted people to take still pictures or video, and not both. (I'm trying to wrap my brain around this logic and keep imagining a person trying to take photos with a disposable camera while shooting video with a massive 1980s camcorder.)
"Maybe everyone don't understand it," he said. "I think it's a complicated sunshine law."
Oh, and the mayor ordered Tisdale out of the meeting on the same day that Gov. Nathan Deal signed a rewrite of the state's Open Records Act into law.
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