ATLANTA — Students, lawyers, public officials, public employees and the general public interested in open government are invited to attend UGA School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic and Georgia First Amendment Foundation’s  virtual training session to learn about accessing government records and the right to attend public meetings. 

“The session is built as a citizens training, you don’t have to be a lawyer or legal professional to join,” said Clare Norins, director of the UGA First Amendment Clinic. “It’s just to give people more information about the open government laws here in Georgia, the Open Records Act and the Open Meetings Act, to help people understand some of the basics of those laws.”

The Sept. 30 virtual session, to be led by a few UGA law school students, will begin at noon and focus on some of the groups’ frequently received questions from the public.

“The pandemic has shown us that it’s more important than ever to understand what their local governments are doing and how they’re making decisions,” said Kathy Brister, president of GFAF.  “At the beginning of the pandemic it was more about straight access to meetings. There was a lot of confusion, as governments had to pivot, about actually being able to attend public meetings.”

Some topics will include: 

– Are local governments required to allow public comment during meetings?

– Does my school board have to share the data behind COVID-19 policies?

– What is executive session and when can my local government use it? 

– If my city has live-stream technology, is the council required to use it for meetings? 

During the virtual session, the group will also brief the public on how to request documents or information from a government entity and who to contact in the event that the government is not being compliant.   

“By in-large the law requires local government to  consider access to the public as the highest priority,”  said Brister. “We operate in a democracy. The public is the government. The government belongs to them.”

The session will conclude with a Q&A session with attendees.  

To register for the session, visit bit.ly/OpenGovAnswers.

More information of Georgia’s open government laws can be found in GFAF’s A Guide to Open Government in Georgia which can be found online at https://gfaf.org/resources/the-red-book/.