Jan 14, 2023
NEEDED – Legislators to draft a 2023 bill that AMENDS WY Public Meetings law to apply to the WY Judicial Branch and the WY State Legislature. See yellow highlighted bold print below:
Current law as of 1/14/23:
ARTICLE 4 – PUBLIC MEETINGS
16-4-401. Statement of purpose.
The agencies of Wyoming exist to conduct public business. Certain deliberations and actions shall be taken openly as provided in this act.
16-4-402. Definitions.
(a) As used in this act:
(i) “Action” means the transaction of official business of an agency including a collective decision, a collective commitment or promise to make a positive or negative decision, or an actual vote upon a motion, proposal, resolution, regulation, rule, order or ordinance at a meeting;
(ii) “Agency” means any authority, bureau, board, commission, committee, or subagency of the state, a county, a municipality or other political subdivision which is created by or pursuant to the Wyoming constitution, statute or ordinance, other than the state legislature, the judiciary, the consensus revenue estimating group as defined in W.S. 9-2-1002 and the investment funds committee created by W.S. 9-4-720;
(iii) “Meeting” means an assembly of at least a quorum of the governing body of an agency which has been called by proper authority of the agency for the expressed purpose of discussion, deliberation, presentation of information or taking action regarding public business;
(iv) “Assembly” means communicating in person, by means of telephone or electronic communication, or in any other manner such that all participating members are able to communicate with each other contemporaneously;
(v) “This act” means W.S. 16-4-401 through 16-4-408.
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NOTE:
Most WY Legislative committees do regularly follow §16-4-401, but it appears the legislature is not statutorily required to do so in other cases.
The committees, boards & councils of the WY Judicial Branch do not typically post meeting info and very seldom posts meeting minutes. Any meeting minutes they do post are, at least, over a year old. (For more info on lack of transparency of Judicial Branch committee meetings see the table at this page.)
