Reviser briefs House Energy committee on open-meetings and open-records duties

Nick Myers, senior staff at the Office of Revisor of Statutes, told the House Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications on the committee room floor that the Kansas Open Meetings Act (COMA) and Kansas Open Records Act (CORA) require that meetings be open to the public and that records provided to the committee generally must be disclosed on request.

Myers said COMA covers any gathering of a majority of a public body's voting members that discusses the body's business and noted that ‘‘interactive communications in a series’’—including emails, social‑media exchanges and serial phone calls—can create a meeting if they involve a majority, share a common topic and are intended to reach agreement. ‘‘Once the communications start to become a reply all or start to touch every single member of or…