The attorney general’s office has proposed formal rules for state and local governments to ensure their meetings remain open to the public during ‘social distancing’ emergency restrictions on gathering in person. Attorney General Derek Schmidt said, during a time of declared emergency when lives are disrupted, many people are apprehensive, and rumors can run rampant, the importance of ensuring openness and transparency in the government decision-making process is even greater than usual. An important way for public bodies to provide reassurance is to go the extra mile to ensure their actions are transparent during the time of emergency. This new guidance will help state and local government bodies throughout Kansas operate transparently even when the public cannot gather in person for meetings. While public-health requirements to slow the spread of COVID-19, including the Centers for Disease Control recommendation not to gather in groups of more than 10 people, that makes many in-person gatherings impossible or inadvisable. The new regulation for complying with the open meeting rule during an emergency provides that if the members of the public body themselves are not physically gathered in one place, then members of the public must be able to join in the electronic conferencing in order to listen to or observe the meeting. There must be no cost for the public to participate.
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