Kentucky coalition to host free webinar, outlining changes to state’s Open Records Act

The Kentucky Open Government Coalition will offer a free webinar — “Open Records 2021: What Do I Need to Know?” — at 10 a.m. (Eastern time) on Monday, June 21, 2021. Coalition co-director Jeremy Rogers, an open records practitioner with two decades of experience and a partner at Dinsmore and Shohl LLP, Louisville, will be […]

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Kentucky bill raises alarms for letting the ‘fox guard the henhouse’

Kentucky House Bill 312 has open government advocates on high alert. The bill would strip the courts of the ability to decide which legislative records must be made public, leaving such decisions to 16 members of the House and Senate. It “lets the fox guard the henhouse,” opponents of the legislation say. The bill also […]

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Kentucky General Assembly ignores its own open meetings law

This, like other serious violations of Kentucky’s open government laws, might have gone unchallenged. Citizens, as well as access advocates have learned to pick their battles. But it is worthy of note when the Kentucky General Assembly ignores a law it enacted in March, 2020, and that it expects all other Kentucky agencies to strictly […]

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Open government is under attack in Kentucky (again)

In a shocking effort by the Kentucky Legislature to undermine government transparency and accountability, Rep. Jason Petrie (R-Elkton) has introduced HB 387, which aims to make it harder for Kentuckians to know how their tax dollars are being used by the commonwealth to lure and incentivize businesses to locate there. What’s worse (if not knowing […]

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Kentucky lawmaker to withdraw bill that would gut open records law

State Sen. Danny Carroll said he will withdraw a controversial bill critics had said would gut the state open records law. Carroll, a Paducah Republican, said he plans to withdraw the bill Wednesday because of concerns raised by the Kentucky Press Association and others familiar with open records laws over its impact on access to public information. “We’re just going […]

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Louisville must hand over details of Amazon HQ2 offer, judge rules

A judge ordered Tuesday that Louisville must turn over to the Courier Journal the full proposal it offered Amazon to build its second headquarters here.  The order was issued the day after Mayor Greg Fischer doubled down on the decision to hide details of the proposal from the public, saying it would be “business malpractice” to […]

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Recent legislative actions in Kentucky, Iowa and Washington demonstrate urgent need for state FOI and open government reforms

      NEWS RELEASE March 23, 2018 Contact: Daniel Bevarly  •  239.823.1811 dbevarly@nfoic.org   Recent legislative actions in Kentucky, Iowa and Washington demonstrate urgent need for state FOI and open government reforms Existing laws directing state government transparency and accountability to residents are under threat. Three recent actions by state legislatures in Kentucky, Washington […]

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Western Kentucky University asks for stay in Open Records dispute

Western Kentucky University is asking for a stay in a case involving an Open Records dispute between the university and the Kentucky Attorney General's office.

In court documents, WKU has asked for the stay until a similar case involving the University of Kentucky is resolved.

WKU is suing the college's student newspaper after denying an open records request for paperwork about 20 sexual misconduct investigations among university employees in the past four years. The Kentucky Attorney General has intervened in the case.

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Kentucky AG Beshear will intervene in WKU open records lawsuit

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear will intervene in a lawsuit between Western Kentucky University and its student newspaper, the College Heights Herald, over an open records request into the university’s sexual misconduct investigations.

“We are seeing an all too familiar pattern by our public universities to stifle transparency related to public records of faculty potential involvement in cases of sexual assault,” Beshear said in a news release Wednesday.

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Ky. Attorney General: WKU and KSU broke open records law in sex misconduct probes

The Kentucky Attorney General has ruled that Western Kentucky University violated the open records law by turning down requests from two student newspapers for sexual misconduct investigations into school employees.

In a ruling issued Monday, Attorney General Andy Beshear and Assistant Attorney Gordon Slone found WKU did not follow state law and ordered the university to "make immediate provision" for student reporters to inspect documents related to the investigations.

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