An overdue update to transparency laws working its way through the Louisiana Legislature would force sunshine onto some places that don’t really want it, with Bossier Parish exemplifying that.
HB 615 by Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson would require any public body that can levy taxes or fees, if in a municipality of at least 10,000 population or is parish-wide if the jurisdiction has at least 25,000 population or if it a state entity (which would account for multi-parish agencies as well), to transmit live (or near-live) by video their meetings and to archive these for at least two years on the Internet, with social media as a permissible outlet, starting this August. It would apply to these bodies’ committees as well under existing law but also adds to this roster state entities that can promulgate rules. This comes on the heels of changes a few years ago that first mandated that taxing bodies transmit or archive.
As Johnson noted on the House floor, current law, even if expanded a few years ago, comes up short. It requires only live (or near-live) video or audio transmission or archiving by taxing bodies (not by single executives who don’t have meetings, such as sheriffs, assessors, and coroners), and carries no requirement that archiving (which is optional if transmitted live) be for a specific length of time nor that it may be made readily available to the public, such as through the Internet. Therefore, in the vast majority of instances citizens must deploy public records requests to obtain archived transmissions, if they exist. The bill would leave in place the video/audio transmission and/or archive regime for all those local entities that didn’t meet the population requirements.
Thus, Johnson pointed out, availability to citizens was the problem. Most have little opportunity to view meetings live, and the archiving rules at present left many, absent heroic efforts (never mind those interested in bodies that didn’t archive), little chance ever to see (or hear) these on demand. He also observed that the technology to accomplish this was extremely widely available. It’s also at little cost, especially if adding archives which by the bill’s language can be accomplished for free.
It sailed through the House unanimously, with the only peep of resistance coming from GOP state Rep. Vincent Cox, who carried water with a complaint about bandwidth that was exposed moments later as absurd. Cox, who is becoming known not so much as a representative of Jefferson Parish but more like its ambassador for its governments wanting to dodge requirements that all local governments must follow, reflected the trepidation that some local officials feel that the new law will cause them to have to be much more accountable to the public.
Bossier Parish provides an excellent example of the range in attitudes about transparency. Two of the three largest entities already perform excellently in that regard and the law wouldn’t affect their operations at all: the Bossier City Council and the Bossier Parish School Board – although the Board has a habit of ending its transmissions when it goes into executive session as it does many meetings, leaving out from transmission typically any action (if any) taken as a result of executive session and the superintendent’s comments, oversights which technically put it in violation of statute for not transmitting/archiving the entire meeting absent technological difficulties.
But the major outlier is the sunlight-averse Bossier Parish Police Jury. Only recently did it move away from the parish’s public information officer plunking down a phone or tablet and streaming meetings through Facebook Live, by installing a professional camera and audio setup.
However, that has been a partial solution at best. Recently, its Facebook Live livestreaming for those wishing to use a phone or tablet has produced transmissions unintelligible to viewers (the problem doesn’t seem to be present on computers), although the archived versions come across clearly. The same problem applies to its two utility districts’ meetings also streamed through that site.
Yet that leads to another problem: Facebook Live archives for only 30 days, putting citizens who want to view meetings any longer than a month ago in the position to having to make public information requests for those meetings of the Jury or utility boards (which are the Jury). And, to make matters more confusing, Jury committee meetings are streamed through the Zoom facility which can be archived but at present aren’t.
Passage of this law will require major changes to Jury procedures. It will have to abandon use of Facebook Live unless it wants to download videos made on it and store them on its own website and post a link to each. It could use Zoom, but if so also would have to host locally the file. And, they would have to have posted the previous two years’ worth of meetings. The easiest solution would be to emulate the Council and Board and transmit and record and archive through YouTube, which children do for free every day – naturally begging the question of why the Jury would choose the clumsy method it has and refuse to archive past a month (or at all for committee meetings) when so much easier and more transparent means exist.
Changes also would be ahead for the other Bossier bodies that have taxing power which meet the population requirements (which exclude the other parish cities and fire districts) – the Bossier Levee District Board of Commissioners, the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District Board of Commissioners, the Red River Waterway Commission, and the Caddo-Bossier Parishes Port Commission. None at present stream live their meetings and none post the archived (if on video) meetings. All will have to do both, at least for two years’ worth of posted archives.
Passage of the bill in its current form means no longer will the public have to go to great lengths to find out, for example, about deals that the Port makes without fanfare, with citizens being able to view in real time or not long thereafter video of the public meeting in which such things are brought up. Bossier Parish presents just one example of how much better informed that citizens would be concerning use of their tax dollars without having to run a gauntlet of red tape.
Which no doubt worries some local officials and their governments who would prefer to operate in the shadows. So, senators need to emulate their House compatriots and ensure not only that this bill passes but also that it isn’t watered down. Better government through greater accountability is at stake.
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