The Tennessee Association of County Election Officials met this week in Memphis to elect a President, and word on the street is that soon-to-be-former Rutherford County Election Administrator Hooper Penuel suffered a tremendous loss in his bid for President of the organization. Reports suggest Penuel lost nearly 2-to-1.

I will post more as information becomes available.

After Monday’s fiasco when members of the press disrupted the proceedings of the Rutherford County Election Commission meeting, Chairman Tom Walker released the names of the applicants. One applicant withdrew her name after learning that names would be released.

Unsurprisingly, one of the applicants is County Commissioner Doug Shafer, who is currently a county employee. Commissioner Shafer was hired as a property assesor for the county some time ago. He previously held no experience in that field.

Another applicant, Hooper Penuel, currently serves as the Administrator of Elections.

Honestly, it looks like folks just took a look at the annual salary and sent in their resume. At about $76,000 – who wouldn’t want this job? Some of those overqualified for the job include secretaries, Verizon desk jockeys, and a Nu Skin salesman – a product I haven’t seen in at least a decade.

Notable applicants include:

• Mike Liles – former state representative and election volunteer/machine operator.
• Bob Bartelsmyer - Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Absentee Ballot Coordinator
• L. Elaine Raiola, former election support specialist for Premier Election Solutions.

This process seems easy enough: toss everyone else’s resume in the circular file and hope someone else applies. These three individuals appear to have some experience in this field. I am particularly intrigues with Mr. Bartelsmyer’s background. I wonder if he was around during the 2000 election?

Read the DNJ and Murfreesboro Post accounts. Both stories are horribly misleading and the DNJ goes so far as to suggest that – once the open record request was filed – the Election Commission violated state law by not immediately releasing the names. Good thing one commentor noted:

DNJ, you forgot they have 7 business days to comply, and the DNJ gave 2. Monday does not count since it was after the business day.

10-7-503 (a) (2) (B) The custodian of a public record or the custodian’s designee shall promptly make available for inspection any public record not specifically exempt from disclosure. In the event it is not practicable for the record to be promptly available for inspection, the custodian shall, within seven (7) business days
(i) Make the information available to the requestor;

I say making 90 copies and blanking out confidential information on top of other duties would apply.

I say the county had to waste time since majority of these resumes will be rejected right off the bat. Wonder how many employers going see their employee listed.

Oh boy, do we have an interesting mess on our hands. In the ongoing battle for control of the Rutherford County Election Commission Administrator position, enter DNJ Executive Editor Jimmy Hart and Murfreesboro Post Editor Mike Pirtle.

This fair and balanced duo disrupted the regularly scheduled Election Commission meeting last night when Chairman Tom Walker attempted to briefly adjourn (read: recess) the meeting in order to discuss the 90-something applicants who submitted resumes to fill the soon-to-be-vacant Administrator position.

Allegedly, Hart and Pirtle stormed through the doors of the Election Commission ranting on about violations of the “Sunshine Law,” which requires governmental bodies to conduct meetings in view of the public. Whether or not Walker and the Election Commission were violating Sunshine Law is up for interpretation. Were they planning to conduct official business in a back office? According to Walker, they wanted to review possible applicants away from the media so that names of potential applicants would not be published because some applicants were county employees. No decisions would have been made during what amounted to “workshop.”

John Taylor – a belligerent old Democrat (replaced by Walker as Chairman) – expressed his distaste for the procedure, according to an article.

What is disheartening about this event is that the victim is not governmental transparency, but rather it is decorum and representation of the facts by the corporate-owned local finger stainer and the non-corporate owned local finger stainer. Let’s take a look.

The DNJ reported on the incident selectively; however, The Murfreesboro Post blatantly skewed the events:

Walker was indignant in defense of his point, saying he didn’t think it was a violation of state laws to conduct public meetings in private. He said his concern was not protecting the rights of voters, but the privacy of the job applicants.

Walker then asked Davis and Willard to leave again. When they refused, he appeared to call the Murfreesboro Police Department (who never showed).

Post Publisher Mike Pirtle and DNJ Editor Jimmy Hart arrived on the scene with Pirtle informing Walker of the law and asking him to call county attorney Jim Cope for an opinion.

Walker pulled out his cell phone and made a call, while walking to the back of the building.

“If we can’t get this resolved tonight, then the meeting is adjourned,” he said.

He emerged several minutes later and said, “Meeting adjourned,” and stormed out the door without a backward glance.

Media are quick to cry “Sunshine Law!” when a governing body closes its doors to the public, but there are instances when meetings should take place where no official business is being discussed and decisions are not being made that said body should be able to close its doors to the public.

The presentation of information provided by both local newspapers should make readers think twice about the source of information viewed or consumed. As we watch while print media convulses into irrelevency, expect more and more newspapers to produce sensationalized or exaggerated information in an attempt to stay afloat.

In what seemed to be general consensus Monday night, the Rutherford County Election Commission decided to advertise for the Administrator of Elections position in the Daily News Journal for a period of two weeks beginning today through June 17th. During the May meeting, the members of the Election Commission encouraged current Administrator Hooper Penuel to reapply for the position.

From the brief article:

The board last month voted 3-2 along party lines to initiate a search for an administrator of elections. The board now has a Republican majority by one person. Penuel previously served as chairman of the Rutherford County Democratic Party, but has stated that he has left politics at the door of the Election Commission door as administrator of elections.

The only qualification? Possess a high school education or a G.E.D. The position pays somewhere in the ballpark of $78,000 a year. Interested applicants can submit inqueries to the Rutherford County Election Commission. Members of the Commission will meet Monday, June 22 at 5:00pm to review applications.