Black Mayors Hold National Meeting on Crime – Discussion Closed to the Public
31st March 2024
The “Black Mayors’ Coalition on Crime” gathered this week in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss the dangers of crime across the US, as well as apparent solutions to the growing threat. The question is, was the meeting really about stopping crime, or, was it all about maintaining optics and making the public believe crime is going down when it’s not?
It’s difficult to say because public and media access to the event was strictly limited. In many states private meetings between public officials related to policy are illegal. However, in Tennessee the regulations are a bit more lax in terms of what constitutes a “meeting subject to law.”
The Tennessee Open Meetings Act defines a “meeting” as “the convening of a governing body of a public body for which a quorum is required to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision.” A “governing body” is “any public body [consisting] of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.”
In other words, a quorum is required, which means Tennessee was very carefully chosen by the Black Mayor’s Coalition (the vast majority of them Democrats) because it allowed them more legal room to hold closed door meetings. But why not include the press and the public in this discourse?
Perhaps they don’t want people seeing what goes on behind the curtain?