This year TCWN celebrates its 10 year anniversary. Six years ago, we sued the Knoxville Utility Board (KUB) for violating the Clean Water Act.  Once we settled our differences in a consent decree, KUB created the Partners Acting for a Clean Environment in 10 Years (PACE10) to manage the clean up and restoration of the KUB sewer system.
 
Each month members of the Partner's Council would meet for monthly updates. After about 2 years, the Council met every other month and has since. Here is the 5-year summary of KUB's work to date.
 
We have also worked with KUB to increase their transparency to the public.  Since our mission is to empower Tennesseans, we think access to agencies should be as transparent as possible.  We sent a letter to Ms. Minthe Roach, CEO of KUB, requesting that the website become more accessible after receiving complaints from the public about the difficulty in finding information on their site. The letter and her response are listed below.
 
TCWN's letter was written after TCWN testimony to the Knoxville Utility Board Board of Directors regarding the public's concerns about the website. TCWN's comments were not well received by the KUB Board of Directors. However on follow up, many changes requested by TCWN were implemented.  The one thing we asked for and did not receive was a change from the online form to a page that said if you have a question about issue A contact staff person C.  We detest the online form!