The City of Manchester, Tennessee, has filed for an injunction against resident and former teacher Sarah Bradley, seeking to prevent Bradley from making requests for one year after she filed multiple public records requests regarding the city’s sewer system.
The filing comes from a never-before cited 2021 lawthat allows a court to ban a person from making additional records requests for up to one year if there’s evidence that the requests were made “with the intent to disrupt government operations.”
Bradley says her intent has been to raise awareness.
“I was very aware that Manchester had serious sewer issues, but there was conflicting information from what the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation said and what the city said, and what my
own eyeballs said,” she said. “My hope was to find a spot that would be great for a high school that would also help the sewer system.”
Bradley said her requests have focused on meeting minutes, agendas, sewage records, capital plans and more.
“I tried to request things I thought would be readily available, digital, and of interest to other people,” she said. “People want to know where our tax dollars are going, and that's a fair question to ask. And if you hear elected officials talk about this great plan they have, I think it's fair to want to take a look at that.”
In its court filings, the city states that she filed "six or more" requests for public documents within the past 12 months, in addition to records requests filed since late 2023.
The city also stated that while it doesn’t think “requesting public records…constitutes disruptive behavior,” Bradley’s requests disrupt government operations because they are time consuming.
In court documents, the city argued that Bradley’s intent to disrupt government operations “may be inferred” after she was warned about “the use of broad categories rather than discrete identifiable records,” along with “repeated demand(s) that City employees search across multiple departments, and require City employees to publish the requested records on the city website, making substantially more work for City employees and department heads.”
The legal filing comes after Bradley made requests to the city board of mayor and aldermen in July, asking for the city to use the Office of Open Records Counsel a free state service that helps negotiate issues like Bradley’s.
The city voted down the measure.
Deborah Fisher, executive director at the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said the 2021 law followed issues with a requester in Gallatin, as well as the Jan. 6,, 2021 Capitol riot in Washington D.C.
“(Bradley) seems to have a clear purpose for requesting records, which is to find out what's going on with the sewer system,” Fisher said. “So she does ask for a lot of technical information about the sewer system.
"To me, it is a classic case of a citizen trying to hold government accountable, and trying to show the public what's happening,” Fisher said.
According to local reporting by Thunder Radio, the city was fined $146,000 in February after the TDEC issued a Commissioner’s Order and Assessment (COA) stating that Manchester reported 108 sanitary sewer overflow events between January 2025 and December 2025. These events resulted in more than 25,000,000 gallons of overflow.
Bradley’s efforts to bring attention to the city’s sewage system have been noted in reporting on the issue.
After the TDEC notice was sent to the city, Manchester Sewer Director Lonnie Foley “asked that citizens report overflows directly to the Manchester Water and Sewer Department” instead of the state at a March 11 meeting, according to Thunder Radio.
According to the reporting, Foley’s statements were in response to Bradley’s questions during the public comment period.
Bradley told The Tennessean that knowing that her public records case is the first of its kind adds a sense of responsibility.
“It adds a lot of weight to it,” she said. “I think it would be overwhelming no matter what, but knowing that how this is handled could affect other cases — it's bigger than me.”
She laughed. “And I'm actually an introvert! I'm a very private person, so this is certainly unexpected.”
Manchester City Mayor Joey Hobbs said the City of Manchester is "committed to transparent government and the right for citizens to have access to records," but called Bradley's requests "voluminous and unclear."
"We believe that Ms. Bradley has abused the law and intentionally used the law to disrupt operations at the city by filing an exhaustive amount of record requests that number in the hundreds," he stated, adding that "Despite responding to every request with what we have to provide, she is never satisfied and bombards our Records Custodian's office with berating and accusatory emails and other communications that disrupt our other operations."
Hobbs said Bradley had been "very disruptive at Board and Committee meetings" and has "exhibited threatening and verbally assaultive behavior against a previous mayor and other committee members, which has resulted in her removal from the meetings."
As to why the board voted against using free mediation services, Hobbs said the city has "previously tried to negotiate and reason with Ms. Bradley" and the city attorney "tried to meet and sit down with Ms. Bradley, in a setting away from City Hall to reach a resolution."
"Despite promising to work with Ms. Bradley and to continue to keep Government Operations transparent, she declined to reach a fair resolution. In fact, she just stopped talking all together," he said. "Others have tried reason and to satisfy Ms. Bradley for over three years, and frankly, she can't compromise. Therefore, the Board...sought the aid of the Courts to settle the matter by force of a Court order."
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TN city accuses woman of "disrupting" government with records requests
