Via press release from House Dems
Today, state Representative Lisa Willner of Louisville filed House Bill 376, which would require the General Assembly’s committees to include a public-comment period whenever they meet. The legislation is in response to House Bill 121, which would require such a comment period for local school boards only. That bill was approved by the House Education Committee yesterday.
In a statement, Rep. Willner, who previously served on the Jefferson County Public Schools’ Board of Education, said:
“Instead of the legislature dictating to locally elected school boards about how to run their meetings, how about we apply this practice to ourselves by requiring a public comment period at every one of our committee meetings?
“The bill I filed today would do that just that. I strongly support the public’s right to be heard, but if we are going to approve this government overreach for school boards and no one else, we should get our own house in order first and become the example we want others to follow.”
The bill is basically a carbon-copy of the bill aimed at school boards:
“Each committee meeting of the General Assembly shall include a public comment period of at least fifteen (15) minutes or until comments end, whichever occurs first, except the public comment period may be passed over if no requests to participate have been made by the start of the comment period.”
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