Smile, Louisiana politicians

At the risk of stating the obvious, public meetings are meant to be witnessed by the public. When governmental bodies convene for official business, the people they govern get to watch, either in real time and in person or through whatever electronic means are available.

And yet in 2020, a Kenner police officer confiscated a cellphone that resident Traci Fernandez was using to record a City Council debate over the city garbage contract. She was also threatened with arrest, according to a lawsuit she filed challenging the council’s prohibition on such recordings.

City officials defend the policy by noting that meetings are open to the public and streamed on the internet, even though the state open meetings law sets no such standard for compliance. State District Judge Michael Mentz initially dismissed Fernandez’s case, arguing that the law does not explicitly prohibit restrictions like the ones set by Kenner.

We’re glad that a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal showed more common sense and a better understanding of the law’s true intent.

Judges Susan M. Chehardy, Fredericka Homberg Wicker and Stephen J. Windhorst ruled recently that attendees do indeed have the right to record open meetings. That puts them on the same page as Attorney General Jeff Landry, who has said he believes Kenner’s recording prohibition is illegal.

We agree that the law is meant to provide for as much public access in any form as reasonably possible.

Ideally, politicians doing the public’s business should have nothing to hide. But if they do, the ruling is an important reminder that the law is not on their side.