Veterans commission has FOI-law refresher

FAYETTEVILLE — The chairman of the Arkansas Veterans Commission hosted a refresher course on the state’s Freedom of Information Act at his first commission meeting last week and pledged to follow the law’s requirements.

Len Cotton of Dardanelle, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s father, took over as chairman at a quarterly meeting of the 15-member commission. The panel oversees the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs. The meeting was at the Arkansas State Veterans Home at Fayetteville, which is run by the department.

Gregory Brown of Osceola, then-chairman and current commission member, disclosed at the commission’s January meeting that some commissioners had exchanged previously undisclosed emails and met by a conference call. This appeared to violate the public meeting-notice requirement of the state Freedom of Information Act, according to the Arkansas Press Association.

Daniel Faulkner, an attorney for the state attorney general’s office, gave the presentation to the commission Tuesday on the Freedom of Information law’s requirements and distributed handbooks and other material.

In general, “the law assumes everything is public and then carves out exceptions,” Faulkner told the commission members. If commission business is discussed, assume that any discussion of it is a public meeting and that any record of it is a public record, he said. Exceptions such as personnel records are spelled out in the literature he provided, Faulkner said.

“I don’t think there’s anyone here who does not follow the ‘do right’ rule,” Cotton said after Faulkner’s presentation.