{"id":27607,"date":"2020-02-21T09:49:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T15:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27607"},"modified":"2020-02-21T09:49:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T15:49:44","slug":"public-forum-requirement-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27607","title":{"rendered":"Public forum requirement proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governmental entities would have to allow a public forum during all meetings subject to the state Open Meetings Act under a bill considered Feb. 20 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Joni Albrecht<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston said she introduced LB1167 because she heard from constituents that they were not allowed to address elected officials at public meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve been elected by the people and if you are able to decide how to spend the people\u2019s money then you are expected to listen to the voices of the people,\u201d Albrecht said.<\/p>\n

Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska, testified in support of LB1167, saying it would promote open government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe frequently are assisting citizens who are trying to engage their government and running into barriers, many times arbitrary barriers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Doug Oertwich also spoke in support. He said he recently attended a city council meeting in Columbus where no public comment was allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people showed up and then they found out they didn\u2019t get to speak,\u201d Oertwich said.<\/p>\n

Shawn Melotz said she began testifying at Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District meetings in 2004, and spoke during time allotted for items not on the meeting agenda. The following year, that option was discontinued and has not been restored, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy passing LB1167, the Papio NRD Board and other governmental bodies across the state will no longer be allowed to ignore issues of public concern,\u201d Melotz said.<\/p>\n

Lynn Rex of the League of Nebraska Municipalities testified against LB1167. Certain meetings, like ones discussing personnel issues, should not have public comment, she said. Rex added that she has attended public meetings where the public forum \u201cturned into a free-for-all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing public participation at all meetings sometimes just doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Rex said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about not having public participation, it\u2019s about doing it in a way that is most respectful and fair to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Vlach, a member of the Lyons-Decatur Board of Education, also testified against the bill. He said it could provide a venue for personal attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe retraction never gains as much attention as the headline,\u201d Vlach said.<\/p>\n

Jack Cheloha, testifying on behalf of the city of Omaha, also spoke against LB1167. He said providing an \u201copen mic\u201d opportunity on a public meeting agenda would be unproductive.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpen comment periods can have the unintended consequences of providing a forum for items unrelated to city business,\u201d Cheloha said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on LB1167.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governmental entities would have to allow a public forum during all meetings subject to the state Open Meetings Act under a bill considered Feb. 20 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[188],"class_list":["post-27607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-joni-albrecht"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/LB1167Albrecht2-20-20b.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27608,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27607\/revisions\/27608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}