Coming up on IGI, we discussed the importance of public records, open government and our right to know.

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This program on KTWU is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.

Hello and welcome to IGI.

I'm your host, Val VanDerSluis.

Every March, an important event comes up that impacts all of us.

But many of us may not even know it exists.

But maybe we should.

Sunshine Week.

Today we talk about the mission of Sunshine Week and the importance of public record and government transparency.

What systems are in place to provide the public's right to government records, and what are the issues we face when requesting access to information?

Here with us today to talk about Sunshine Week and the partners dedicated to ensuring our rights to open records and meetings.

As Chad Lawhorn, president for the Kansas Press Association.

Chad, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's great to have you here.

So we're talking about open government, open government transparency, open records.

Let's start off with you and we talk about Sunshine Week.

What exactly is Sunshine Week?

What is the mission?

Well, really it is.

It's an effort by media across the country and organizations like the Knight Foundation and others that support media that really to help everybody understand that government is meant to be open.

It's meant to be, so that the members of the public can get information that they need from the folks that serve them, and that there are laws in place, you know, both nationally and pretty much in every state that gives you certain rights.

And so this is just our opportunity to try to make sure that folks are aware of that.

And that's great.

And the history of all of this.

When when did the need for open government transparency begin?

When did Sunshine Week and and this act really start coming up?

Yeah.

It's been it's been decades that we've had this.

And I mean, in terms of maybe when we reached a crisis point somebody that understands the history a little bit better and I would probably need to state to do that.

But, certainly, you know, think of times that have been tumultuous in our history.

You know, back in the 1960s, in the 1970s, when there was a lot of mistrust in government as it related to, whether it be the Vietnam War, civil rights, those sorts of things, government documents and having access to those are extremely important.

And and the other part of Sunshine Week is also ensuring that meetings are open to the public when there's times of distrust with government.

The last thing you want is to feel like these elected officials have an avenue to meet privately by themselves and decide things, because that's not the way government is supposed to work.

And so, you know, those are probably some times where it became more heightened, I think, in the, in the minds of the public.

But it's been needed forever.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so you talk about the open meetings and of course, we have the Kansas Open Meetings Act, otherwise known as coma.

Talk a little bit about that.

And, you know, I know the public has access to open meetings, but who who does that entail?

Who has to provide that notice?

So a lot of times the easiest way to think of it is if if this is clearly a government body, then they're going to be covered under coma.

So that's all of your county commissions, all of your city commissions.

It's township boards for those in the rural residents.

If if they're leaving attacks against you that it's an open meeting.

So even a small group like a cemetery board, you know, if they're taxing you to maintain that cemetery, technically, their meetings open, and, you would have a right to go and listen to it.

Then what's a little bit less thought of?

But important is then that groups that were created by those groups of the city Commission creates an advisory board, and it is the city's board, then that meetings open, even though those may not be elected officials, even they may just be people that were appointed by the city commission, but because they are doing the work of the city Commission, then it's open.

Sure.

So basically anything that we are a taxpayer for, we should have access to be able to attend or at least visit or see the minutes from those particular meetings, well, attend.

Yes.

I mean, so it's not it's not adequate for a, a government body to say you can't attend, but we'll show you the minutes later that you're right, is to attend.

And that's encouraged as well.

I think there's probably a lot of us that don't realize how many meetings are happening out there that are discussing what is being done with our taxpayer money, but absolutely, we should be attending these particular meetings where it gets a little more of a gray area is, like a nonprofit.

And so some nonprofits get some government money, but that becomes really kind of a very case by case situation in terms of whether that nonprofit board perhaps has received enough government money that it would qualify under the act, that it has to have an open meeting.

So those are some areas where you might feel like it should be an open meeting, but the law may not support you on that.

Gotcha.

And it's up to us to find these meetings.

You know, they don't just pipe out all this information to everybody if we have to, if we are invested in our community and interested in where our money is going, we go to their website.

So all those notifications are listed on the sites and or is their main area.

There's there's ways to do that in terms of following along on websites, following along on social media.

But the law does give you rights to also be notified.

So for instance, say you wanted to, ensure that you knew of every city commission meeting in your community.

You could file a written request, a written notice with the city commission that says, I or so and so, under the provisions of the Kansas Open Meetings Act, asking to be notified of any meeting, that, the, you know, your town city commission holds and you provide them contact information on how to get that to you via email, via text or something like that.

Okay.

And, then they are responsible for doing that and they will, if they will, committed a violation of the act, if they have you on the list and don't provide you that notice.

Okay.

They have to renew it every year.

Good for a year.

So, you talk about violations, what if they do not provide any notice or not provide you the notifications that you requested?

Who do you report that to?

The Kansas attorney general would be a good place to start.

I mean, technically, a county prosecutor, in your community could also, take action.

But the vast majority of the cases are handled by the Kansas attorney General's office.

They're familiar with how to how to how to deal with that.

And, yeah, it happens.

And they do, make a ruling and say, yeah, you should have done this to comply with the act.

And a lot of times, if it's a first offense, that governing body will be told to, you know, you're going to need to participate in some training.

We're going to have somebody come and provide you training on what?

The provisions of the Kansas Open meetings Act.

And sometimes there's a little bit of a monetary fine if if the violation was found to be particularly egregious.

Gotcha.

All right.

So we talked about Koma Kansas open meetings Act.

Let's move over to the Kansas Open Records Act.

And what does that mean for the public?

What does that allow the public access to?

So that is simply lots of what the what governments write down and create a record of, you're entitled to see.

And so, you know, if you want to know the salary of, an official that that serves you in your city government or your county government, that is something that you can see through the Kansas Open Records Act, because there is a record that exists in their files that shows how much that individual is making.

And so you are entitled to see that record check.

You are entitled to obviously see things like meeting minutes.

You are entitled to, see, you know, sometimes emails that of elected officials, enough staff members about if they're talking about a subject and they wrote it down in an email, that can be something that you can see as well.

So, one thing about government is it produces a lot of records and so if you want to get to the bottom of something, about government, you have a much better chance of finding the truth if you really dive into the paperwork.

Right.

So what is that process if you want to see something?

So, I mean, technically, under the law, you need to be prepared to put it in writing.

Put your request in writing.

You need to.

Doesn't have to be from a lawyer.

This isn't set up so that ordinary citizens can do this.

You can just say, I'm so-and-so.

I am requesting to see, and then you need to be specific about what you're trying to see.

Because if you just say you want to see everything they're going to, they're going to have grounds to deny that that's being too broad.

So if you want to see them, the minutes of a certain meeting, then list the date of the meeting, what the body of the meeting was and say, I want to see the minutes from, you know, January 3rd, about the truck and the Traffic Safety Commission and, and say, I'm asking for this under the provisions of the Kansas Open Meetings Act.

Excuse me, the Kansas Open Records Act.

Sure.

And, that's really all you have to do.

There would be some suggestions that I would give you, especially if you're becoming asking for something a little more complex.

I would always ask, prior to, you know, fulfilling the request, if there are any fees associated with it, notify me of, the required fees in advance so that they don't do all this work, and then you find out they're going to try to charge you $100 or something.

That shouldn't be the case.

Unfortunately, governments do get to charge for their time a little bit.

And that and that can add up.

So I would put that that caveat in there that you want to know that in advance.

And then importantly, put a sentence in that says if for any reason you deny or redact any part of the, the record, please provide the statutory justification for doing so.

So the law gives them ability to say, we're not going to give you that record because it's this type.

And the law says, we don't have to give that to you.

Okay.

It also gives them the ability to say, we're going to block out these three lines because the law says certain types of information, you know, like an easy example is we're not required to give you somebody's Social Security.

Sure.

And so we're going to block that out.

Well, but they also the law says that they have to be specific and tell you why they're blocking something out or why they're not giving you a record.

But you need to tell them in your letter that you want those reasons.

Or else if you don't tell them that you want the reasons and they don't necessarily have to provide them to you.

Understandable.

How long does something like this usually take?

I read that sometimes that can be a little bit of an issue.

Is the delay in processing time and getting the information to you, right?

So the law says they should do it as quick as they can, but they say that, they, they have to, get back in touch with you after three business days.

All right.

So but that doesn't necessarily, unfortunately, mean that the record is going to be available at the end of three business days.

Ideally it would be.

And also the law has provisions in there that if it's not available, they kind of need to provide an explanation about why it's not available and provide you a good faith estimate of when it will be available.

But sometimes especially like in our business where we are maybe, putting together more complex, open records requests.

It could take several weeks or more.

So, but if they simply say, just don't give you any answer, that's a violation of the, of the, of the law.

And that's where then you go back to the attorney general to report, and then they go through their process.

What are some of the other issues that come about related to open records?

Government transparency, getting the information?

I know that we talked a little bit about potential delays that could have happened.

Anything else that could?

Well, I mean, I think, you know, different government organizations have a different understanding and amount of training with the law.

So, you know, it's unfortunately, you may run into some folks that don't have a great understanding of the law that may push back about this.

So you need to, be a little bit familiar with the law yourself so that you can confront that when it happens.

It's like, oh, I know there is a thing called the, you know, Kansas Open Records law.

I really am entitled to this.

You know, if you guys have an attorney, go ahead and give give this letter to your attorney because he or she's going to understand what what you need to do next.

So, you might need to be prepared to do that.

You know, sometimes they're going to ask, well, why do you want that?

You never have to answer that question.

The law does not require you to say, this is what I want, this information, okay?

It's just it's information that I'm legally entitled to.

And I want it at this point.

So, don't fall into that situation where, you know, you get in a back and forth about, well, I want this because of this and that.

Just like, no, the law says I can have this, and now it's in your court to to follow the steps of the law.

Yeah.

And you speak with a lot of experience with this, you know, because you're with the LJWorld as well.

Correct.

So, I'm sure that you have also explored a lot of, open records trying to get information for a lot of news stories.

So.

Absolutely.

So, so, yeah, I'm a working journalist.

We cover, articles and events all the time.

Still, I'm the editor of the Lawrence Journal World, so I'm also oversee a staff that does that.

So it's an important tool in our toolbox and one that we use, you know, multiple times a year.

It's not something that just, you know, is on the books and never gets used.

And, really, there's probably not a week goes by that we aren't, using it in one way or another, whether we're making a formal request or not.

Fortunately, some governments, you know, you can just ask for the document and they know that they'd have to give it to you under the Kansas Open Records Act.

So they're like, I mean, we'll just give it to you.

You don't have to go through the whole do it.

You don't have to go through the whole application process, but they can make you do that.

Some areas where we use it that you may not think of it as often.

So it's very important in our criminal justice coverage.

So there's a particular type of document that when somebody gets arrested, you know, when somebody gets arrested, you got to fill out some paperwork if you're the police.

And so that is called a probable cause affidavit.

That is explains why we arrested this person, why we had a valid reason to arrest that person.

For years and years, that was not an open record in Kansas.

Couldn't get it.

Here in the last, I don't know, it's been several years now.

It has become available as an open record, though a judge can decide to deny that request.

To then attorney for the the the defendant or an attorney for the prosecutor can ask that it be denied and kept closed.

And then a judge has to decide.

Okay.

But the reason they're so important is think of a situation like this.

Somebody gets arrested for, let's say, aggravated battery.

And that's all we know at this point.

We see their name on the jail log and that they were arrested for aggravated battery and now starts to go through the court process.

And, the defendant says, I'm going to waive my right to go to a, preliminary hearing, which is where the facts of the case would kind of be presented and said instead they reach a deal with the prosecutor and it's like, let's take this from aggravated battery to trespassing.

And if we don't have that arrest affidavit, we're never going to know what actually happened.

And if we don't ever actually know what happened, how can the public who is responsible for voting for the district attorney, for example, make a judgment about is this district attorney playing things down that shouldn't be or consequently, it could be the other way.

It's like, is this district attorney charging people with crimes so that, you know, really that's too much of a crime to be charged with.

So if we don't have the the access to the arrest affidavit, we're just not going to know.

And so it's very important.

Absolutely.

So you talked a little bit about closed information, closed meetings.

What would entail?

You talk a little bit about what entails what we have access to, but related to going back to the meetings Act.

You know, sometimes you hear that this meeting is closed.

Why why would it be closed to the public?

Well, so if a meeting is truly closed from beginning to end, that should only ever exist because it is, it's not a public body.

Public bodies aren't allowed to have meetings that are closed from beginning to end.

But what public bodies can do is they can have an open meeting and then recess into executive session.

All right.

So that looks like everybody gets to come into the room and we start this meeting.

And then somebody makes a motion and says I say we're going to I make a motion to go into executive session to talk about X, Y and Z. And there's only certain things that the law allows them to go in to talk about, but they do that all in public, and then most of the time they'll go into another room and they'll have their discussion.

And indeed, that's a closed door session.

And members of the public don't go, don't get to go in and don't get to listen to it.

But what the law says is that you can't go in there and talk about anything.

Very common example of why an executive session would be held is, say, maybe the city manager's not working that well, and they need to figure out whether they want to continue to employ the city manager.

So they'll go in and conduct basically the job evaluation for the city manager in private.

And the law says that they can do that.

But now what the law says shouldn't happen in there, can't happen in there, is that they all get together and agree.

It's like, well, I would vote to fire it.

And the person says, I would too.

And this one says, no, I wouldn't.

All of that type of discussion is supposed to happen out in the public.

And they certainly can't actually take a vote in there and, and fire them and then never say anything about it.

If they wanted to fire that city manager, they would need to come back out of that closed executive session and restart the meeting and have a discussion.

And it could be very short, could be as short as somebody saying, I make a motion that we fire so-and-so, and then they have to take a vote out, okay.

All right.

So talking about government transparency, we're talking about Sunshine Week.

I know that the Kansas Press Association is a key component of that.

There are other media and other entities that are part of the of ensuring open government transparency.

What are those?

Well, I mean, we have a great partnership with the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.

And then, we're fortunate to have a of, you know, a nationally recognized director, at the Kansas Press Association.

I'm just a part, you know, I'm not an employee of the Press Association.

I'm just a, person that's serving as the chair of the board at this particular year.

But we have Emily Bradbury, who's a full time, staff member and who's really well regarded across the nation.

And so she and her colleagues around the country at Other Press Association, other broadcast associations, band together to work, really throughout the year to promote transparency.

But during this week, you know, it's special and it's our chance to do things like this and talk to the public a little more directly about it.

And, and then there are some, some private foundations that are supportive of open government and supportive of democracy.

Because democracy really would not work nearly as well as it does if we don't have access to basic information, such as meetings and documents produced by government.

Sure, sure.

And related to the Kansas Press Association.

I you know, and I'm just asking.

I know what I know what you all do.

But, you know, just for the general viewer who may not understand what okay, Kansas Press Association, I'm not familiar with that.

Kansas Press Association, we have over 100 members.

We have members across the state.

Really?

I think in every county, in the state.

And so our traditional member, has been, you know, owners and operators of newspapers, the vast majority of our newspapers in Kansas are weekly newspapers.

So lots and lots of hard working folks, sometimes, many times family owned operations, that are serving their communities that may or may just have a few hundred people or, you know, in the case of places like Lawrence and Topeka in Kansas City, serve major metro areas.

So those are our members and have been our members for a long time.

We also have, you know, news organizations that are online only.

Maybe they don't have a print paper, but as long as they are, you know, meet the standards of being true journalists and and, follow the, the industry codes and ethics of journalism.

They're also available to be members of the association.

And we have those, there's the Johnson County, has has some of those and some, some great, folks that are, that are providing news, through those platforms as well.

And, so that's, that's who we are.

What we do is we talk about things like this.

One of the things that is a really big issue for us, it's a particular type of public record.

And that's called a legal notice.

All right.

So if you, read in pretty much any newspaper in the, in the state there most days are a section that's called legal notices.

And that is where state law requires governments, city commissions, county commissions, township boards, all types and everybody.

That's taxing you to provide you a notice of certain things that are going to happen.

If if there's going to be a rezoning in in the community, they need to print a legal notice that says this rezoning hearing is going to happen, you have a right to come to it.

Here's when it's going to happen.

Here's where it's going to happen.

Here's the information about the piece of property that's going to be owned.

And the law says that has to happen.

And not only does the law says say that they have to provide notice, there has to be proof that they provided notice.

And that's where a legal notice in a newspaper comes in.

It's that it's there and exist.

And we fight really hard to keep that, because there are lots of governments that would prefer to just put that on their website because, I mean, there is a cost that they have to pay to have it published in a newspaper.

And so they don't necessarily like that all the time.

But the cost is very, very small compared to what governments, compared to government budgets.

These are not breaking anybody's budget by any means, but they prefer to just have it on their on their website.

And we think that's a really bad idea for several reasons.

One, look at how safe websites are these days.

They're getting hacked all the time and they go away and all of a sudden you might have years of public notices that can prove and that are very valuable documents in and of themselves, because it explains why hearings are happening and explains zoning requests that are coming through all tax.

Lots of tax issues are required to have these notices.

If you get hacked and it goes away, what's what's to say?

You're ever going to get that information back.

Whereas when it's in a newspaper that's an archive that's going to last.

We not only have an archive of it, but the local library has an archive of what the Kansas Historical Society has an archive of it.

There are lots of archives of newspapers floating around.

So that's one thing.

But the other thing is, is that it is so important to have an independent third party that's involved in publishing these notices, because, you know, you got lots of good people in government, but sometimes bad things happen.

And I mean, if you are required to have a public notice published, say 14 days before the, before the actual hearing, and you just messed up and it's like you didn't get it published until ten days before.

Well, that would you'd have to restart the whole process over.

You're going to make some people mad, you know, if that's just on a website, you know, that's a little hard to prove exactly when that went on that website, especially if you're the person, if the government is the one that's in control of the website in the newspaper.

We know exactly when it went in there.

And we're an independent third party that can verify and attest to that type of information.

So we think that's really important and real quick, I just have a few seconds here.

If people need more information from you or from the KBE or just in general about open records, is there a website they can go to?

We have the Kansas Press Association, and I do think that the Kansas Attorney General's office does a good job of providing the facts about both of those laws.

Some look there as well.

That sounds great.

Thank you, Chad, so much for being here with us today.

We appreciate your time so much.

And, we want to also thank the Sunshine Partners across the country who worked tirelessly to ensure our rights continue for government transparency.

And that's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

For IGI, I'm Val VanDerSluis and I thank you for watching.

This program on KTWU is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.