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Tullahoma Alderman Bobbie Wilson has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the settlement of the lawsuit filed by former city HR director Casta Brice against Tullahoma, noting in a lengthy letter to the Tullahoma News that there was more to “Shredder Gate” than meets the eye.

“As an alderman, I am an elected representative of the citizens of Tullahoma,” she began in her letter. “I was intimately involved in all aspects of what has become known as “shredder gate”.

Shredder Gate was the name attached to a group of documents that were reportedly being ready for shredding. Former Alderman Jenna Amacher discovered the cache of documents and raised an alarm. Brice was subsequently suspended with pay after the incident and eventually had her position eliminated. She then filed a lawsuit against the city which was settled recently. She subsequently commented that she felt betrayed by her former employer.

“If the Tullahoma News was truly interested in accuracy and factual accounting of the entirety of the Casta Brice case (“Shredder Gate”) both Casta Brice’s account and Kurt Glick’s account would be two of many articles starting with a factual account of the reason Casta was placed on paid administrative leave,” Wilson wrote in her letter.

Wilson set forth what she believes should be known by the public.

“Casta Brice was put on administrative leave WITH PAY pending an investigation into the documents in the “shred bin”. What led to that suspension?” she posed. “In addition to the routine shred bin at city hall, Casta ordered a separate 95-gallon shred bin for a “one time clean out”. She ordered that bin without the knowledge or consent of Jennifer Moody (the city administrator at that time). Casta then filled that bin with documents from city hall. Because her actions were not standard procedure, they were reported to members of the BOMA and 5 of the six aldermen went to city hall to find out exactly what was happening. They discovered the new shred bin in a closet.”

The shred bin was secured by the aldermen to be taken to the police department so that the items in that bin could be sorted, documented and cataloged. The bin was then seized by Attorney General Craig Northcott and access to that bin was denied to the aldermen. Attorney General Northcott later stated at a BOMA meeting that the aldermen would not have access to the bin or the documents while he was conducting his investigation.

“Without access to the bin and documents the aldermen were never able to conduct an independent investigation,” Wilson wrote. “Casta states in her interview published by the paper that: “Much was made about “shredding” because it looks bad. But the much less sensational truth is that document disposal procedures do require removal after so many years. It is standard practice followed by other city departments and, in this case, the old documents had nothing to do with current issues”.

“But the attempt to shred documents was the one and only reason Casta was suspended. So is her assertion that her efforts to have documents shredded was “standard practice” true? The short answer is no,” Wilson maintained as she explained her interpretation of the law covering such actions. “There is a specific organization tasked with assisting municipal governments. The Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) was created in 1949 to provide technical assistance to elected and appointed municipal officials in Tennessee. There is a separate CTAS for counties. One of those tasks is specifically records management. In fact, there is a complete handbook: Records Management for Municipal Governments (mtas.tennessee.edu). The management of official records is a complex but straight forward process that is defined and guided by a combination of state and federal laws as well as advisory guidelines. T.C.A Code Title 7 and 10 specifically address all aspects of government documents. T.C.A 10-7-301 defines agencies, document types and management in general terms. The city of Tullahoma has never officially adopted the MTAS Records Management for Municipal Governments but has, under T.C.A. 10-7-702 used that as the guiding document.”

Wilson says records manuals compiled by MTAS must “be used as guides by municipal officials in establishing retention schedules for all records created by municipal governments…”

“Since this is a guide rather than the final word, a municipality may add more records or record series to the retention schedule if needed,” she pointed out, citing the code. “According to the Tullahoma Municipal Code, Chapter 6, Records Management Section 1- 601, The City Recorder of the City of Tullahoma, Tennessee, is hereby appointed as the records manager of the city. The records manager shall approve the disposal schedule and then establish retention, disposition and archiving schedules for each document.”

She then pointed to MTAS Guidelines in the establishment of a records management program.

Per Wilson, all cities need to have some system of checks and balances to be sure that records are disposed of on schedule but not destroyed when they still may be needed for administrative, legal or historical purposes, citing MTAS Guideline page 14/77.

She went on and said that particular guideline addressed all aspects of records management. Under policies and procedures, it recommends:

Require anyone removing a file from its storage space to fill out a sign out sheet indicating who they are what record they are taking and the dates of its removal and return.

When a document is created it falls into one of three categories:

1) Working papers

2) Temporary records

3) Permanent records

“…are records of such value that they must always be retained in some kind of permanent format.

Each of these types is then subject to specific retention periods (MTAS Guide pages 16, 17).

There are also Special Consideration which apply to legal documents.

Records and documents of proceedings in a court of record can only be destroyed after a judge has issued an order authorizing their destruction (CTAS 1197).

More importantly, the law:

“…explicitly prohibits the destruction of any original process in a civil or criminal proceeding” (CTAS 1197) Exhibit and evidence in court cases:

“…the clerk can destroy certain records under the direction and order of the judge once the case has been finally disposed of for a period of ten years.

The statute requires the clerk to make an inventory of the evidence to be destroyed with reference to the case involved and the term of the court in which the evidence was used. The clerk then gives the court order and the item to be disposed of to the sheriff (CTAS 1196).

MTAS specifically addresses Casta’s assertion, page 3 of 7, the alderman asserts.

“Disposing of the records of a county office is not as simple as hauling them out to the trash when you get tired of them. Because these records can be of great importance to so many people, there are a number of procedural checks and balances to go through in order to lawfully dispose of many records,” Wilson wrote. “As director of HR, Casta did not have the independent legal or administrative authority to dispose of any documents. While both Casta and the Attorney General have asserted that no criminal offense was committed, without an itemization and categorization of each document in the shred bin, there is no way to know what if any offense was committed. Casta Brice independently without supervision or consultation chose the documents that she personally placed in the shred bin. Not a single document went through any of the myriad procedures that are required for lawful disposal. Every document that Casta placed in the shred bin was a violation of City policy if not State law.”