Kentucky’s governor and attorney general have redefined how governments can hold public meetings during the ongoing COVID-19 state of emergency.
On Wednesday, Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order suspending parts of the Open Meetings Act concerning requirements for public agencies to meet in a physical location and provide access to the public. Beshear cited guidelines from the CDC and Kentucky Department of Public Health that recommend avoiding gatherings of people in order to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus that has killed thousands of people globally.
The same day, Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued an opinion explaining how public agencies could go about meeting in a transparent manner during the pandemic crisis.
“We are experiencing something wholly new and untested in our lifetimes or the lifetime of the law,” said Amye Bensenhaver, a retired assistant attorney general and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. “My consolation is in knowing that all the viable alternatives to in-person meetings are mandated by the governor and AG. There’s a clear commitment to ensuring alternative mechanisms for protecting both the public health and the public’s right to know.
“It’s not pretty, and the greatest challenges lie ahead for smaller agencies with fewer resources. That’s where the public will need to be vigilant.”
Beshear and Cameron both gave public agencies the green light to conduct public business via video-teleconference meetings, without providing a physical location where members of the public could watch the proceedings. But they both said public agencies must instead provide live streaming of audio and video from those meetings for the public.
“The potential crisis facing the commonwealth is of unparalleled magnitude,” Cameron’s opinion states. “Yet, public agencies must continue providing critical public services. And in doing so, agencies subject to the Open Meetings Act must conduct public business in open meetings to deliver those services.”
Cameron’s opinion requires public agencies to notify the public that they intend to hold a meeting via video-teleconference. And the agencies must “‘precisely identify’ the website, television station or other technological means by which members of the public may access” the meeting. Media representatives will still be allowed to attend meetings in-person when possible.
“The fact that a worldwide pandemic caused by a highly contagious infectious disease makes a physical meeting location for the public infeasible does not mean that an otherwise open meeting can be conducted in executive or closed session,” Cameron’s opinion states.
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Written by Ben Kleppinger. Cross-posted from the
Advocate-Messenger via the Kentucky Press News Service.