The first-amendment attorney representing Coffee County resident Sarah Bradley has clapped back at the City of Manchester, calling its allegations “outrageous.”
The city recently filed an injunction, seeking to ban Bradley from making records requests for one year, as well as asking for explanations of records, and would require her to ask a court for permission before filing further requests.
“A city deciding to sue one of its own citizens for keeping too close an eye on her government is an outrageous abuse of state power that should offend every decent member of society,” attorney Daniel Horwitz told The Tennessean. Horwitz represents Bradley, who the City of Manchester accuses of “disrupting the government” by filing numerous records requests.
“The City of Manchester for some reason wanted this fight, and they are going to get it good and hard, Horwitz continued.
Bradley filed a counter First Amendment lawsuit on August 13th, according to the paper.
The City of Manchester states that Bradley filed “six or more” request for public documents within the past 12 months.
Bradley’s counter-filing said her actions are not disruptive and calls the city’s complaints “both trivial and basic government responsibility,” according to The Tennessean article.
“Over three years, Bradley — acting as an ordinary citizen — exercised her statutory rights under the Tennessee Public Records Act to investigate how the City of Manchester runs its sewer system, spends federal grant money, disciplines its employees, and complies with environmental law,” the court documents state. “Bradley asked about unpermitted fill sites, sanitary sewer overflows into the Little Duck River, Bonnaroo dumping, Land Use Subcommittee meetings, and where the City’s money goes.”
The city announced on July 16th that it was seeking injunctive relief in a post on social media and then turned off the ability to comment on the posts. The post said that the city would “have no further comment at this time.”
But in a recent conversation with The Tennessean, Hobbs said the City of Manchester is “committed to transparent government and the right for citizens to have access to records,“ but called Bradley’s requests “voluminous and unclear.”
“We believe that Ms. Bradley has abused the law and intentionally used the law to disrupt operations at the city by filing an exhaustive amount of record requests that number in the hundreds,” he stated, adding that “Despite responding to every request with what we have to provide, she is never satisfied and bombards our Records Custodian’s office with berating and accusatory emails and other communications that disrupt our other operations.”
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