[NOTE: The following is legislative testimony I submitted for a March 15 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the attempt by the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training (KS CPOST) to close certain records related to Kansas law enforcement officers. It has been corrected for typographical errors.] March 15, 2017 To: Sen. […]
A bill proposed this session, HB 2338, would amend K.S.A. 22-2717(h) so that “public comment sessions” before the Prisoner Review Board would become “private comment sessions” no longer open to the public. Further, HB 2338 seeks to amend K.S.A. 75-4318(g)(2) of the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) so that the “comment sessions” are not open […]
To the chagrin of genealogists and researchers, Kansas joins the federal government in severely limiting access to birth and death information. Except for instances where determining the parentage of a child is relevant to a limited class of legal proceedings, Kansas law, specifically K.S.A. 65-2422d(c), does not “permit inspection” of birth and death records unless […]
Members of media organizations and citizen journalists alike should be cognizant of their rights and legal limitations as they cover election day in Kansas. Those seeking to cover a polling place are considered to be “visitors” as set forth in Chapter II(f) of the Kansas Secretary of State Election Standards. All visitors are encouraged to […]
If a public agency refuses to disclose records in response to a request under the Kansas Open Records Act, and the requester believes the records should have been disclosed, the requester has a few different options under Kansas law to contest the refusal. The individual can file a complaint with either the county or district […]
An improvement is needed in the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) where it permits an executive body, such as a city commission, school board, or county commission, to “recess…open meetings for closed or executive meetings” under K.S.A. 75-4319(a). The closed meetings are commonly known as “executive session.” Under current law, the body can go into […]
This spring, the Manhattan Free Press finally received a response from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to an open meetings complaint it filed in 2012 against county officials. Although the response finds the officials in violation of law, the AGO declined to penalize them. Moreover, the response implies that the complainant is somehow responsible for the delay and lack […]
A version of this story was originally published in the July 21, 2016 print edition of The Montgomery County Chronicle under the headline “One year later: External pressures, local decisions have joined together to influence Independence’s medical scene” that includes additional information, including a forward and chronology by Chronicle editor Andy Taylor. When Mercy Hospital […]
The Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) does not “require a request to be made in any particular form,” and requests may be made orally, although an agency “may require a written request.” While such flexibility in the nature of the request may seem to favor those who request documents, especially those who are not lawyers, […]
July 1, 2016, will mark the one-year anniversary of the passage of statutory amendments that conferred additional powers on the office of the Attorney General to penalize public agencies for violations of the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) and Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA). Among other things, these new statutes give the AG subpoena power and […]
