Or in this case, the Knox County Commission.

A jury took less than 3 hours to find that the Knox County Commission violated the state’s “Open Meetings Act” also known as the Sunshine Law when they met to appoint replacements for 12 of the 19 county commissioners turned out of offices by a ruling on term limits.

These replacements have been under a cloud of suspicion since this past January when the county commission held a secret meeting, known as ‘black Wednesday’ to basically determine who they would appoint to replace the retiring 12, and in violation of the Sunshine Law.

No public meetings were held and several proposals to make the process open were rejected.

In the meeting to determine replacements one commission’s wife was appointed his seat, another got her son appointed, and generally lots of questionable appointments, some with meager qualifications.

If one good thing has came of this long and interesting fiasco it has made Knox County citizens much more aware of participating in their government by showing up to vote and giving input to whomever ends up as our new Knox County Commissioners.

Next years elections should be very interesting.

You can read the whole story in today’s Knoxville News-Sentinel