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December 28, 2000

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KBEMS next meeting location changed

By JOHN HULTGREN
The Kentucky EMS Connection

FRANKFORT — The next meeting of the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services, scheduled for Jan. 4 at 1:00 p.m. EST, will be held in the first floor auditorium at the Cabinet for Health Services Building, 275 East Main Street.

All sub-committee meetings scheduled for that day are also being moved to CHS' first floor auditorium.

The board meeting had originally been scheduled to be held at the Frankfort Career Development Center, which is a minimum-security detention center.

Board staff, in announcing the move, did not state a reason.

However, Jay Reeves, a Kentucky paramedic, had requested that the Board move the meeting to another location in a letter to the Board's executive director, Brian Bishop, yesterday.

Reeves letter expressed his concern that the meeting may be in violation of the Kentucky Open Meetings Act because those attending the meeting would have to show identification and sign a visitor log.

According to Kentucky Revised Statute 61.840, "no person may be required to identify himself in order to attend [meetings of a public agency]."

Reeves' letter also stated:

I have had a conversation with Warden John Fowders, the administrator of the Frankfort Career Development Center. He imparted to me that the facility is a "minimum security prison" or detention center. The visitor logs of such a facility are subject to the Open Records Act this being affirmed by the Attorney General in Open Records Decision, 93-ORD-102. As such, these documents could be used by an outside party to determine those in attendance at the public meeting. This could place a chilling effect on the ability of the public to attend.

At the suggestion of Dr. Patricia Bausch, I contacted Amye Bensenhaver with the Attorney General’s office. In our conversation, she stated that holding the meeting in a facility that required identification to gain access "raises a question." She also stated that she had no past decisions on point to reference.

Apparently there were no safety-related concerns raised regarding the decision to hold the meeting in a detention center.

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