Union voted Monday night to provide separate phones to elected officials in the wake of a recent opinion from the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office that the city had violated the Kentucky Open Records Act.
This will allow the commissioners to centralize all communications related to city business, rather than mixing their official communications with personal ones, which could potentially make it more difficult to run afoul of the law in the future.
The opinion came down from the attorney general’s office on May 28 as a result of a complaint made by former City Commissioner Brian Garner, who was ousted from his seat on the commission along with the other commissioners earlier this year following a legal battle that ensued after the Boone County Clerk’s office distributed the wrong ballots at two polling sites during the November election.
Specifically, the AG’s office contends the city failed to 1) respond to a request within five business days as required by law, 2) adequately provide reasoning for redactions in the records requests and 3) perform an adequate search for records.
The city and a specially contracted attorney, Jeff Otis, later responded to the AG, disputing its opinion, but there’s currently no indication the city wants to escalate the case beyond that.
The cell phone policy takes effect immediately. There was little discussion of the policy at Monday’s meeting.