Browse Arkansas Code titles and sections
25-19-106. Open public meetings. [Effective when emergency ends or on December 31, 2020.]
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
25-19-106. Open public meetings. [Effective when emergency ends or on December 31, 2020.]
(a) Except as otherwise specifically provided by law, all meetings, formal or informal, special or regular, of the governing bodies of all municipalities, counties, townships, and school districts and all boards, bureaus, commissions, or organizations of the State of Arkansas, except grand juries, supported wholly or in part by public funds or expending public funds, shall be public meetings.
(b)(1) The time and place of each regular meeting shall be furnished to anyone who requests the information.
(2) In the event of emergency or special meetings, the person calling the meeting shall notify the representatives of the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, if any, located in the county in which the meeting is to be held and any news media located elsewhere that cover regular meetings of the governing body and that have requested to be so notified of emergency or special meetings of the time, place, and date of the meeting. Notification shall be made at least two (2) hours before the meeting takes place in order that the public shall have representatives at the meeting.
(c)(1)(A) Except as provided under subdivision (c)(6) of this section, an executive session will be permitted only for the purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer or employee.
(B) The specific purpose of the executive session shall be announced in public before going into executive session.
(2)(A) Only the person holding the top administrative position in the public agency, department, or office involved, the immediate supervisor of the employee involved, and the employee may be present at the executive session
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 25-19-106
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. A text match is a research starting point; applicability is not established.
Issuing source page ↗
Authority boundary: historical statutory source snapshot not current law.
Open the recorded source website ↗
Record provenance
Stable record: arkansas_code:legal_authorities:25-19-106:variant2
Source file: gov.ar.code.title.25.odt
Pages: Not recorded – Not recorded
Passage SHA-256: 77e24c6ccc7fc1c835bed3d3ba339d2f6f85042a044330f36b625122fdb409f8
Source location: content.xml paragraph 7969
Stored source content
25-19-106. Open public meetings. [Effective when emergency ends or on December 31, 2020.]
(a) Except as otherwise specifically provided by law, all meetings, formal or informal, special or regular, of the governing bodies of all municipalities, counties, townships, and school districts and all boards, bureaus, commissions, or organizations of the State of Arkansas, except grand juries, supported wholly or in part by public funds or expending public funds, shall be public meetings.
(b)(1) The time and place of each regular meeting shall be furnished to anyone who requests the information.
(2) In the event of emergency or special meetings, the person calling the meeting shall notify the representatives of the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, if any, located in the county in which the meeting is to be held and any news media located elsewhere that cover regular meetings of the governing body and that have requested to be so notified of emergency or special meetings of the time, place, and date of the meeting. Notification shall be made at least two (2) hours before the meeting takes place in order that the public shall have representatives at the meeting.
(c)(1)(A) Except as provided under subdivision (c)(6) of this section, an executive session will be permitted only for the purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer or employee.
(B) The specific purpose of the executive session shall be announced in public before going into executive session.
(2)(A) Only the person holding the top administrative position in the public agency, department, or office involved, the immediate supervisor of the employee involved, and the employee may be present at the executive session when so requested by the governing body, board, commission, or other public body holding the executive session.
(B) Any person being interviewed for the top administrative position in the public agency, department, or office involved may be present at the executive session when so requested by the governing board, commission, or other public body holding the executive session.
(3) Executive sessions must never be called for the purpose of defeating the reason or the spirit of this chapter.
(4) No resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion considered or arrived at in executive session will be legal unless, following the executive session, the public body reconvenes in public session and presents and votes on the resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion.
(5)(A) Boards and commissions of this state may meet in executive session for purposes of preparing examination materials and answers to examination materials that are administered to applicants for licensure from state agencies.
(B) Boards and commissions are excluded from this chapter for the administering of examinations to applicants for licensure.
(6) Subject to the provisions of subdivision (c)(4) of this section, a public agency may meet in executive session for the purpose of considering, evaluating, or discussing matters pertaining to public water system security or municipally owned utility system security as described in § 25-19-105(b)(18).
(7) An executive session held by the Child Maltreatment Investigations Oversight Committee under § 10-3-3201 et seq. is exempt from this section.
(d)(1) All officially scheduled, special, and called open public meetings shall be recorded in a manner that allows for the capture of sound, including without limitation:
(A) A sound-only recording;
(B) A video recording with sound and picture; or
(C) A digital or analog broadcast capable of being recorded.
(2) A recording of an open public meeting shall be maintained by a public entity for a minimum of one (1) year from the date of the open public meeting.
(3) The recording shall be maintained in a format that may be reproduced upon a request under this chapter.
(4) Subdivisions (d)(1) and (2) of this section do not apply to:
(A) Executive sessions; or
(B) Volunteer fire departments.
(5) Cities of the second class and incorporated towns are exempt from subdivisions (d)(1) and (2) of this section until July 1, 2020.
Cross-references
Connections may be documented source relationships, shared citations or nearby passages. Each explains its basis; a connection alone does not establish applicability to your situation.
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
10-3-3201. Legislative intent.
The General Assembly intends to establish the Child Maltreatment Investigations Oversight Committee as a mechanism to promote transparency and efficiency concerning procedures of child maltreatment investigations in this state.
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 10-3-3201
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. The source passage cites 10-3-3201. This identifies an authority to review, not proof of applicability.
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
25-19-105. Examination and copying of public records.
(a)(1)(A) Except as otherwise specifically provided by this section or by laws specifically enacted to provide otherwise, all public records shall be open to inspection and copying by any citizen of the State of Arkansas during the regular business hours of the custodian of the records.
(B) However, access to inspect and copy public records shall be denied to:
(i) A person who at the time of the request has pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of a felony and is incarcerated in a correctional facility; and
(ii) The representative of a person under subdivision (a)(1)(B)(i) of this section unless the representative is the person's attorney who is requesting information that is subject to disclosure under this section.
(2)(A) A citizen may make a request to the custodian to inspect, copy, or receive copies of public records.
(B) The request may be made in person, by telephone, by mail, by facsimile transmission, by electronic mail, or by other electronic means provided by the custodian.
(C) The request shall be sufficiently specific to enable the custodian to locate the records with reasonable effort.
(3) If the person to whom the request is directed is not the custodian of the records, the person shall so notify the requester and identify the custodian, if known to or readily ascertainable by the person.
(b) It is the specific intent of this section that the following shall not be deemed to be made open to the public under the provisions of this chapter:
(1) State income tax records;
(2) Medical records, adoption records, and education records as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, unless their disclosure is consistent with the provisions of that
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 25-19-105
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. The source passage cites 25-19-105. This identifies an authority to review, not proof of applicability.
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
25-19-106. Open public meetings. [Effective until emergency ends or December 31, 2020.]
(a) Except as otherwise specifically provided by law, all meetings, formal or informal, special or regular, of the governing bodies of all municipalities, counties, townships, and school districts and all boards, bureaus, commissions, or organizations of the State of Arkansas, except grand juries, supported wholly or in part by public funds or expending public funds, shall be public meetings.
(b)(1) The time and place of each regular meeting shall be furnished to anyone who requests the information.
(2) In the event of emergency or special meetings, the person calling the meeting shall notify the representatives of the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, if any, located in the county in which the meeting is to be held and any news media located elsewhere that cover regular meetings of the governing body and that have requested to be so notified of emergency or special meetings of the time, place, and date of the meeting. Notification shall be made at least two (2) hours before the meeting takes place in order that the public shall have representatives at the meeting.
(c)(1)(A) Except as provided under subdivision (c)(6) of this section, an executive session will be permitted only for the purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining, or resignation of any public officer or employee.
(B) The specific purpose of the executive session shall be announced in public before going into executive session.
(2)(A) Only the person holding the top administrative position in the public agency, department, or office involved, the immediate supervisor of the employee involved, and the employee may be present at the executive session wh
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 25-19-106
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. Same stored citation; legal effect and authority still require review.