{"id":169,"date":"1978-01-10T18:07:53","date_gmt":"1978-01-11T01:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/?p=169"},"modified":"2014-11-09T08:56:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T15:56:47","slug":"public-accessibility-vital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"In Scheduling Meetings – Public Accessibility Vital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Click<\/a>When public boards and commissions establish meeting schedules, a prime concern should be the convenience of the public, with schedules, hours, and\u00a0places that would make the meetings freely accessible to the people.<\/p>\n

The Herald feels scrutiny should be given some existing situations with a view to convenience and accessibility.<\/p>\n

For example, the Alpine\u00a0School Board meets the third Wednesday of each month at 7 a.m. Now 7 0’clock in the morning\u00a0may be a good time for some to meet, but we doubt it’s an hour that’s convenient to most people. We recommend the board re-examine that hour.<\/p>\n

The Utah County Commission has announced its meeting schedule for the year for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. This seems like good coverage but we raise a question on an alternate\u00a0meeting place listed.<\/p>\n

The meetings, says\u00a0the legal notice, will be “in Room 311 or Room 309 in the Utah County Building” unless changed by action of the commission. Room 311 is fine – it’s the regular county commission chamber where public meetings should be held. But Room 309 is the individual office\u00a0of the commission chairman and it doesn’t normally have direct access from the hallway, making it inconvenient for the uninitiated citizen. Meetings should be open to the public and gatherings in the small, fairly-secluded room would smack of a private session. it seems to us.<\/p>\n

Another thought: We wonder if in the major counties of the state there shouldn’t be provision for a night meeting to accommodate citizens who are tied to their jobs in daytime. Salt Lake, Utah, Weber, Cache – none of these counties holds a night county commission meeting regularly. Most of the major cities do hold one regular night\u00a0session a week, but not the counties.<\/p>\n

Possibly the Legislature should look into public\u00a0meeting schedules and adjust\u00a0the law where advisable. Meantime, we suggest local officials of the various taxing units evaluate their own individual schedules\u00a0as to their adequacy in serving\u00a0the public needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When public boards and commissions establish meeting schedules, a prime concern should be the convenience of the public, with schedules, hours, and\u00a0places that would make the meetings freely accessible to the people. The Herald feels scrutiny should be given some existing situations with a view to convenience and accessibility. For example, the Alpine\u00a0School Board meets… Continue reading In Scheduling Meetings – Public Accessibility Vital<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gashler.com\/nlc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}