Rhode Island Current: How to get a 33-member advisory panel together? Remote Participation could make it easier.

This article originally appeared in the Rhode Island Current on March 14, 2024, and was written by Nancy Levin.  

Below is Common Cause staff’s quote included in the article discussing exceptions to the Open Meetings Act.  

“John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, doesn’t think the requests for flexibility will end there. Speaking to lawmakers at a panel hearing on Feb. 29, Marion warned that the exception requested for the LTCCC would be just the beginning of what he expects to be “hundreds and hundreds” of public bodies seeking similar carve outs in the coming years. Marion, along with Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, urged lawmakers to create a uniform set of guidelines exempting certain types of public bodies — advisory panels, for example — from in-person attendance, rather than a piecemeal approach.”

To read the full article, click here.