By: Diane Benjamin

Public Access issued a ruling yesterday finding the County Board Executive Committee violated the Open Meetings Act on November 13th when they didn’t let Jackie Beyer speak. The County policy demanding people sign up 24 hours in advance to speak violates OMA.

The County tried to claim that even though the written policy on their website says citizens have to sign up 24 hours in advance and a response was not sent to Jackie in response to her email, she could have showed up at the meeting and asked to speak. The Attorney General’s office didn’t buy that claim.

Excerpt from the last page:

I consider this a weasel demand. Since this is not the first time the County has been found guilty of violating the Open Meetings Act, “consider” isn’t forceful enough. If the County doesn’t adopt a “signup 15 minutes before a meeting with no restrictions” policy more Requests for Review will be filed.

The County will either prove they respect the 1st Amendment rights of citizens to address their government or prove they don’t.

See the ruling here: