photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall is pictured on Oct. 11, 2024.

Gov. Laura Kelly signed a bill on Wednesday that will require the Lawrence City Commission to change the way it handles public comments in its live streams of meetings.

The new law updates the Kansas Open Records Act and Kansas Open Meetings Act, and a provision in it says that any governing body or agency that “elects to live stream their meeting on television, the internet or any other medium shall ensure that all aspects of the open meeting are available through the selected medium for the public to observe.”

That would affect the Lawrence City Commission, which currently does not include all parts of its meetings in its live broadcasts on YouTube.

Last May, the commission voted to change its general public comment procedure, moving the public comment period to the end of the meeting and not broadcasting it live. Most city staff members, except the city manager and city clerk, now leave the meetings before the general public comment period, which sometimes occurs well after 10 p.m.

A city spokesperson told the Journal-World that the passage of the new law means the city will change how it conducts its meetings, but the spokesperson could not confirm what specific changes would take place.

The City Commission’s initial change to the public comment procedures came right after multiple disruptions at public meetings in Lawrence and Douglas County. Last spring, a City Commission meeting was derailed after multiple public commenters on Zoom engaged in racist and antisemitic hate speech, including using the N-word and displaying a flaming swastika, and insulted another commenter with obscene and sexist language, as the Journal-World reported.

This policy change was one of several implemented by local governing bodies in an attempt to enforce decorum rules and hold efficient, civil business meetings in the face of routine disruptions. Some local government leaders still had concerns afterward that public comment periods were being abused by certain speakers.

In a statement in September, City Commissioner Amber Sellers wrote that a small but vocal group of commenters was using “intimidation tactics, including threats and bullying, that seek to create an atmosphere of fear and hostility.” For the rest of the fall, Sellers opted to leave the meeting room during the general public comment period and listen to it from a different location; she returned to listening to public comments in person in December.

Two commenters in particular — Michael Eravi and Justin Spiehs — frequently use the general public comment periods at City Commission, County Commission and Lawrence school board meetings to insult and berate public officials with vulgar language, including in Eravi’s case, use of the N-word and gendered slurs, and in Spiehs’ case insulting remarks about women’s physical appearance. Both men claim that they have the right to do this under the First Amendment, and they have sued a long list of public officials in Douglas County and been removed from multiple meetings.

Some governing bodies have floated the idea of getting rid of the comment periods altogether. After a nearly half-hour-long disruption of a Lawrence school board meeting by Eravi earlier this year, multiple school board members said it could be time to rethink the public comment process, as the Journal-World reported.

Nothing in state law requires that governing bodies hear public comment at their meetings.