Correction: This article has been updated to make clear that it is Olathe City Council that does not stream public comments. The Olathe school board does stream public comments at its meetings.
Public comments at the beginning of Johnson County commission meetings are once again being streamed live along with the meeting.
The policy reverses a decision made two years ago by county Chair Mike Kelly, which was later approved by the commission.
The decision not to stream public comments became a flashpoint, particularly for conservatives who have made a habit in recent years of showing up to opine on everything from the county’s COVID-19 response to the 2020 election.
Kelly announced the change at the commission’s Thursday meeting and attributed it to changes in misinformation policy by the video platform YouTube. Commission meetings are livestreamed and archived on YouTube and the county’s OnBase video streaming system.
Why were comments cut from livestream?
The public comments portion of the meeting, when residents can sign up to speak for up to two minutes on a topic of their choosing, was dropped from the commission’s live video feed in January 2023, right after Kelly took office as chair.
It meant that people wishing to give public comment at the start of the meeting could still speak to the commission, but their comments were not broadcast online. (Comments people gave in response to individual agenda items were still aired as part of the regular meeting stream.)
At the time, Kelly cited YouTube’s restrictions against the spread of falsehoods that had become a concern during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020.
He said, based on YouTube’s policies at the time, the county could lose access to its YouTube channel if misinformation aired by residents during public comment sessions violated the video-sharing platform’s community standards.
He also said that the change was aimed at allowing the commission to conduct meetings “in a more timely manner and with a respectful tone.”
On Thursday, Kelly said YouTube officials have removed a previous warning to the county, and that the platform’s policies and community guidelines were evolving.
County GOP leaders celebrate move
In the two years since the policy was implemented, the decision has been the source of non-stop criticism from many regular commenters, some of whom developed their own taglines about their “non-public public comments.”
Gary Morgan of Shawnee began taping his comments, which were subsequently posted on the Johnson County Republican Facebook page and other sites.
Speaking as a private citizen on Thursday, former county commissioner Charlotte O’Hara — who lost to Kelly in the race for county chair in 2022 — linked the decision to a bill pending in the Kansas Legislature on open records.
Among the provisions of SB 70 is the requirement that a public body that shows live streams shall “ensure that all aspects of the open meeting are available through the selected medium for the public to observe.”
“I think this is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for the rest of the county to see what people are talking about when they come to address you,” O’Hara told commissioners Thursday.
Also among the public commenters Thursday was former Johnson County GOP chair Maria Holiday.
“It only took two years but we got there,” Holiday said. “We are not tired of winning yet, and we have a lot more surprises to come. We are going to be making Johnson County even greater.”
Commission not only local body that doesn’t stream comments
If the Kansas Senate bill becomes law, it could affect other local meetings, including the Shawnee Mission school board, which has a special public comment meeting a half hour before its regular session that has not been livestreamed since fall 2021.
For Olathe City Council meetings, public comments come at the end of the meeting and are also not streamed.
During remarks at a recent state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, O’Hara urged lawmakers to add a requirement that public comment periods come at the beginning of all meetings.
