Opinion: Attendance at KOMA workshop a positive step for local officials
- Roger Sims, Publisher
- Jan 20
- 3 min read
Opinion
By Roger Sims
Journal publisher
On Saturday morning, Jan. 17, more than two dozen elected officials from across Linn County showed up for a workshop on the legalities involved in running an efficient – and legal – local government.
The workshop conducted by Jeff Deane, a partner with Lauber Municipal Law, and Lindsey Kolisch, an associate with that firm, spent considerable time on the intricacies of the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) and the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA), plus additional information on the penalties for disregarding the intent of those statutes, the difference between passing a resolution and passing an ordinance and other matters pertinent to being a well-informed elected official.
Locally, Deane is the city attorney for La Cygne, Osawatomie and other cities in the region. Kolisch is city attorney for Parker and other cities as well. Of course, the La Cygne council, which sponsored the workshop, was in attendance as were members of the city’s planning commission, and housing authority.
But other cities had representatives there as well, including Linn Valley and Pleasanton. Chasity Ware, Linn County clerk was also there. Since being appointed to the county clerk post in November, Ware has had a steep learning curve in trying to figure out the ropes of what is arguably the toughest job in county government.
The two-person staff of the Journal was there as well, and even though we have a combined 50 years of covering local government, the workshop was an opportunity for us to brush up on KORA and KOMA regulations, particularly those that relate to the closed-door exceptions to conducting government business in open session.
Webster “Web” Hawkins, who died in 2016, and his wife “Schmitty," were the publishers of the Osawatomie Graphic newspaper, which has since been absorbed by the Miami County Republic. A member of the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame, Hawkins preferred to use the term “secret sessions” for those instances when members of the councils, commissions or school boards went behind closed doors to discuss business.
He was adamant that government business be conducted in the open. Former Attorney General Robert Stephan was also a great believer in the need to interpret KOMA laws so as to keep all policy, budget and governing discussions out of the backroom and in front of the public view.
While government officials may find it irritating when we question their choices to do so much business in “secret sessions,” they shouldn’t. Part of our job as journalists is to speak up on behalf of the public, to push governing bodies to do a better job of making government transparent. (We find it ironic when local politicians spout the need for transparency in their campaigns only to be too quick to dodge into executive sessions.)
For the most part, the cities and school boards we cover do an admirable job of keeping issues public. We applaud them for their efforts, and we applaud the city of La Cygne and La Cygne Mayor Debra Wilson for making Saturday's workshop a priority. Finally, we applaud those that took time out of their weekend to learn more about the law and the jobs
they were elected to do.