Mayor Berke Responds to Resignation Request

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — The Hamilton County Republican Party is calling on Chattanooga’s mayor to resign.

Chairman Tony Sanders sent out a press release Friday morning, saying Mayor Andy Berke needs to step down following a recent controversy over Berke’s lack of transparency.

Sanders says the mayor crossed the line by keeping information from the public.

Recent published reports accuse the mayor of using an encrypted cell phone app with his advisor to hide communications from the public.

Sanders tells News 12 by doing that, Berke is breaking his constituents’ trust.

“As any elected official, you have a responsibility to the electorate, and I think at this point, that responsibility has been broken, and that’s the reason I asked for him to step down. Do the right thing,” Sanders said.

However, the Mayor’s Office says regardless of the medium, open records requests pertain to messages on a personal phone.

“No matter what the platform is, we obey our guidelines, so if it’s a WhatsApp message, if it’s an iMessage, if it’s a text message, if it’s a Facebook message, we keep those for 60 days,” Berke said.

“The problem is with this app, there are no records to request,” Sanders said. “Once you delete the app like he’s done, the records are gone, and the app is designed to delete records at your interval, whether it’s one day, immediately, seven days or whatever, it’s designed to delete the records. So he can say the records are available, but they’re not.”

News 12 asked Berke if he was planning to step down.

“I don’t pay attention to partisan politics,” Berke said. “Instead, what we do is come to work, make sure that we help people no matter what their party is in Chattanooga.”

But Sanders says this isn’t about politics, and he’d still ask Berke to resign, even if he was a Republican.

“This is bigger to me,” Sanders said. “This is beyond partisan. The mayor is a non-partisan. I know he’s got Democratic and Republican support. This is period. I think we’ve got to say enough is enough. And I think at this point it is enough.”

Mayor Berke also released a statement Friday afternoon saying, “In 2016, public servants are expected to communicate with citizens over lots of channels — Facebook, Twitter, email, Instagram, text message and others. We have lawfully complied with every open records request since taking office. In fact, this year alone our City Attorney’s office has fulfilled 3,314 open records requests to date. I don’t pay attention to blatantly partisan attacks. Over the years I’ve enjoyed having the support of both Republicans and Democrats and I’ll continue to govern for the people who live here and not for political parties. I am going to continue to focus on doing my job and I look forward to winning re-election so I can continue our progress for another four years.”

The Hamilton Democratic Part Joe Boshears released a statement saying, “I find it interesting that Tony Sanders is politicizing a non-issue. Public servants in both political parties use encrypted messaging applications everyday. Anyone sending an email, utilizing Facetime, or using iChatt is essentially sending an encrypted message. And all of this data -including data sent via. WhatsApp- is retrieveable and accessible. Encryption doesn’t mean that something disappears forever, in fact, the law requires public offices to store text messages for 60 days. Anyone submitting an open records request can access the texts in question- regardless of the app uses to send those texts. Using Tony Sanders’ logic, any public official that’s sent a Facebook messages should resign immediately because Facebook messages are encrypted. Maybe Mr.Sanders should call for the resignations of Senators Corker and Alexander. Both recently opened SnapChat accounts.”