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Attendance sparse at session on Freedom of Information Act
The Morning News
Attendance was sparse during a Thursday session on the state’s Freedom of Information Act at the annual meeting of the Association of Arkansas Counties.
About 40 representatives of counties around the state turned up for the session dealing with what is public and what is not.
Many officials questioned the procedure of giving public notices of public meetings to the media and the public.
Under current state law, presenters said, county governments are required to notify the public of public meetings.
The media and the public are not required to be notified unless they give notice that they want to be notified, they said.
The difference between the media’s and the public’s notification, however, was that only the media needs to be notified of specially called meetings — the public does not have that right.
Officials said that is because special meetings can be called within two hours and it is not practical to expect the public to be flexible enough to attend.
A collaborative effort of
Arkansas News Bureau, the Log Cabin Democrat of Conway, the Pine Bluff Commercial, the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith, The Jonesboro Sun and The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas
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