Trina Baughn
After asking Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan to consider resigning, new City Council member Trina Baughn requested trip and cost information for all of his city-related travel in the past five years.
She asked Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson for the trip information in a Wednesday afternoon e-mail.
Baughn requested the mayor’s travel records for the dozen boards and committees she knows about, as well as any she doesn’t. She asked Watson to also give the total cost of each trip, including mileage, per diem, hotel expenses, entertainment, and other charges, as well as the funding sources.
“I would like to know how much taxpayer money Mr. Beehan has spent for travel in his role as mayor,†Baughn said.
If the U.S. Department of Energy paid for the travel, Baughn said, Watson should name the specific funding source and the total amounts paid.
She requested the information by 1 p.m. Friday.
“Let me know if you foresee any problems in meeting this deadline,†Baughn told Watson.
Her request includes the mayor’s travel for meetings of boards and committees of the following organizations: the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, the Tennessee Municipal League, the Energy Communities Alliance, PlanET, East Tennessee Economic Council, Anderson County Economic Development Association, and Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization, among others.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly Watson thought he could meet the request, if at all.
“I am glad to help, but this type of request will take a number of hours of staff time to prepare and is not readily available,†Watson said in a Wednesday afternoon response to Baughn. “It has been requested by another council member that this work assignment needs to be brought to a vote of the council for a directive as a priority for the city manager.â€
In the meantime, Watson said he has two reports available that he will distribute to City Council. Oak Ridge City Clerk Diana Stanley has one, a 2012 summary report for the full City Council. The city has another report, a 2008 summary from former City Clerk Jackie Bernard, Watson said.
That response didn’t appear to satisfy Baughn, who was elected to her first four-year term on Nov. 6.
“In just about every organization I’ve worked for (in both the private and public sectors), travel records are centrally filed both electronically and in hard copy form,†she said. “This information request should not be terribly difficult to fill unless the travel itself is excessive. Roughly how many trips per year does he take?â€
In one of his e-mail responses, Watson told Baughn that the City Council has a policy that members adopted many years ago outlining any travel conducted by a council member or the mayor.
“The purpose was to understand where all were going and helping the council to communicate,†Watson said.
Regarding a notice that Beehan will attend an ECA conference in New Orleans, Watson said ECA is a separate organization that includes DOE communities.
“Mayor Beehan’s costs will be reimbursed by DOE for the described trip, as they provide stipends for the various communities to encourage involvement,†Watson said. “I am sure you will get an opportunity to attend and meet other elected officials in the future that face some of the same environmental and legacy challenges we face in Oak Ridge. It is also an opportunity to meet and hear from high-level DOE officials and learn of various funding initiatives.â€
Baughn said she received an earlier notice for Beehan’s trip to Boston last week for the National League of Cities conference.
Watson said the city budgets money each year for several council members to attend that conference.
“The National League of Cities is the national municipal league that advocates for national municipal policy,†Watson said. “The Tennessee League will also be present at the meeting, and there is an opportunity to meet with fellow Tennesseans as well as elected officials from other states.â€
Beehan attended this year, as did council members David Mosby, Anne Garcia-Garland, and Chuck Hope, Watson said.
Baughn’s call for the mayor to consider resigning was included in a column posted on her website Tuesday and submitted to local media last week. In that column, Baughn also asked Beehan to drop his bid for a third two-year term.
The City Council is expected to appoint a mayor to a two-year term during a Monday evening meeting.
Beehan said he would not resign, and he called Baughn’s column “mostly fiction,†saying he would consider legal action against her if he were not an elected official.
Susie Williams Taylor says
WOW! Just WOW!!
David A. Vudragovich says
When you are new, it can be good to make an impression. But it is also important what that impression is because it can have an effect on who helps/supports you down the road when you need help getting something done.
I do not like that city employees will be spending time gathering the records instead of taking care of their current work load, particularly with such a short time period.
Are the travel reports not readily available on computer?
Ck Kelsey says
David ,this may have been somethingthat needed doing for a while. Is Beehan “living large” at the expense of good government? I would like to know for sure. Speculation alone is harmful IMHO.
Martin Baker says
I dont think its right to use city funds to try and satify a personal vendeta. This is not being much of a team player and is already hurting the city council on which she has not even sat on except to attend a work session. The tension at Mondays meeting will be thick. Hope everyone brings boxing gloves. Who’s next?
TJ Garland says
As I said in another post, there has never been a written report, as far as we can tell, given by the mayor to the city council or city departments on the info he has learned on his travels. This also applies to other council members or city employees who go on “fact finding” trips.
When the city is $180 million in debt, with more to come, every dollar needs to be parsed.
Street maintenance, police and fire protection, water, sewer, and electrical service are the services they taxpayers require. In this economy, anything else is a luxury.
Can we afford it?
Sam Hopwood says
The mayor pretty much staying on the road at taxpayor expense -local, state, or federal- may not be all that bad. At least it keeps him out of Oak Ridge. I recall someone stating that the best thing that George Bush did as president was to get Victor Ashe out of Knoxville by appointing him ambassador to Poland. Worked for them…..
J. Valentino says
I would like to officially rescind my vote for Miss Baughn (what was I thinking)…if she wanted to do some investigative reporting she should have applied to a newspaper not run for City Council…Perhaps she should focus her efforts on getting DOE to pay it’s fair share of PILT, generating new revenue sources or working to cut some city expenses…If she doesn’t want Mr. Beehan to be Mayor than don’t vote for him…
Ck Kelsey says
I would officially like to say thanks to Mrs. Baugn for her willingness to get wasteful takers exposed. Finally someone with some guts. I would vote for that every chance I got !
Peggy Tiner says
Sometimes an informal audit is good for an organization. Over the years, I have wondered about some actions of city council – thinking they surely couldn’t all have gone mad at the same time.There are always “inner workings” in city government – from small towns to Chicago. It is nice to get a new member who doesn’t yet know the “inner workings”. They usually stir up some excitement before getting the hang of things and then settle into the system. I don’t know Ms Baughn, but I voted for her because council needed some freshness.
Myra Mansfield says
Go Trina! And don’t bite the apple of “settling into the system”. Tear down the system, and build something new that’s founded on integrity.
Angi Agle says
I’m tempted to make a FOIA request for the cost to assemble every witch-hunt she goes on. One such demand she made of the school system was well over $1000 (time of the lowest-paid staff member who worked on it, though the true cost was much higher, plus the copying fees as permitted by the state). When it was prepared for her to pick up, she refused to pay, asking just to “look at it” instead.
Jake Morrill says
Individual council members have no individual authority. Their only authority is as part of the whole voting Council. No individual council member can direct the work of city staff. Only the whole Council, voting together, can direct staff. So, if Baughn wants to create hours of work for city staff, she should propose it as a motion for Council to either pass or not.
Anne Garcia Garland says
Trina may be a bit abrupt in her requests for information but perhaps her experience in trying for four years to get council to comprehend that there were irregularities in the school board’s budget are a part of her impatience to influence changes in city government. Getting actual numbers and facts to inform council’s decisions has not always been easy (and isn’t still.) It is better now than a couple years ago. (And, yes, I know that council has no say-so over how school board spends their money but raises in appropriation were being made rather automatically and could have been contained sooner.)
I think it hyperbolic at best to suggest that Trina’s requests or opinions are witch-hunts or vendettas. The people elected all of us to represent their interests and spend their money effectively. I was myself surprised to find early on that little public information is readily retrievable on line in city records. It is a bit dismaying that this city which is so proud of its access to great minds and advanced scientific knowledge is so far behind in making information easily retrievable electronically. Changes are in the works toward that end. But let’s not “shoot the messenger.” What seemed like a simple request of the city manager turns out to be a labor-intensive exercise? There is an opportunity for improvement.
As for her request that the mayor withdraw from his request to be re-selected, the people who elected Trina did indeed expect change. The earliest change available is that of mayor. Mr. Beehan did tell several council people and others that if council would vote for him last time he would not run again. Because I have opposed the mayor on a number of issues, a lady approached me in high dudgeon one morning demanding to know, “Anne, why do you hate the mayor?” My answer then as now was that I in no way hate the mayor. Tom is a personable, talented, and generous man. I simply disagree with the way he does his job. Outside of council we agree on many objectives and viewpoints. There is very little opportunity to discuss the processes of council within council, however, so we wind up creating policy (our main duty) in bits and pieces during council meetings trying to be clear to the manager what it is that council will approve. There is another opportunity for improvement.
Sam Hopwood says
Very well stated Ms. Garland, very well stated.
J. Valentino says
So this is how Council members communicate to each other with out breaking the Sunshine Law…why hold meetings? why not just text your votes to each other…Why am I not surprised that Miss Garland is supportive of these tactics? The next election can’t get here soon enough…
J. Campbell says
Mrs. Baughn ran on a platform of not accepting the status quo and on cutting the large deficit that previous councils have incurred. I think she deserves a lot of liberty to fulfill her pledge. She’s making some people very nervous – maybe a good thing.
Charlie Jernigan says
I suppose this would be a point about deficits if she were willing to pay for the staff time to gather all this info as provided by state law. Her crusades at the school board show that she is unwilling to be responsible for these kinds of fishing expeditions.
TJ Garland says
Her staff time is paid for with her taxes. In my travels about city hall, I have seen an occasional employee not too busy. There are some busy times, but employees can be seen at extended lunches.
Angie you must charge out school employees time at DOE rates.
Your lowest employee cannot cost you more than $25 hour counting benefits. That’s forty hours of hard work.
Give me a break! Your complaint is always the one used when avoiding transperancy.
The citizen/taxpayers are the school system’s bosses. Shape up.
Ck Kelsey says
Good Points TJ. Enough of the “sweep it under the rug” nonsense .
M Paul says
A few hours to collect the information is probably a real drop in the bucket compared to all of the travel excesses in the first place. I work for a large private company that scrutinizes every trip to ensure it is necessary and has strict policies on reimbursable expenses.
If all travel reports were available to the public in some way, we could not use the clerical excuse to hide any excessive expenses and would probably make city employees reluctant to abuse their travel privileges in the first place.
Too many government organizations have that big government mentality thinking they are entitled to more than we can afford. Thank you Mrs. Baugn for taking a stand.
CK says
Yes ,I see the people attacking Trina for doing what has been needed for a long time. Too many Socialist out there joy riding on taxpayers dollars.Meanwhile they demand we send them more money. 1 person with some integrity xan make a huge difference.
Jason Allison says
About time we get someone who makes good on their campaign promise. The time has come that we hold these people accountable for their actions. They are spending our money so that makes it my business to know.
Susie Williams Taylor says
So, alledged abuse w/travel and other costs could be a lose-lose for the Oak Ridge Reservation due to lack of oversight by “someone” or a contingent of employees. Due to Ms. Baughn’s “challenge”, the City cannot afford an investigation when such an investigation would be “too costly” to the City due to the fact that their computer system is antiquated!? Of ALL places, doesn’t sound absurd? And us “outsiders” have been trying to figure out “why” our hometown appears to be a ” ship wreck”! There’s NO accurate accountability for the Council, City Manager, Mayor, etc.! I’m supposing it’s too late for ANY investigation for alledged abuse in spending as voting takes place tomorrow, however, the powers that be, please, PLEASE get a handle on “available”, readily accessible record keeping. This is owed to your constituents! Antiquated computer system…..unreal! Perhaps a vast amount of cogitating is due~~~
Susie Williams Taylor – ORHS Class of 1962