Kentucky Open Government Coalition co-director Jeremy Rogers, a partner in the law firm of Dinsmore & Shohl, today presented an extended version of the Coalition's recent webinar, "Open Records 2021: What do I need to know," to a large gathering of public agency attorneys and paralegals at the Kentucky State Government Bar Association in Frankfort.

The participants peppered Rogers with tough questions that the new laws leave unanswered, prompting all to agree that implementation is likely to yield confusion, delays, and multiple legal challenges.

Exacerbating the confusion is the attorney general's eleventh hour filing of the administrative regulation establishing the standardized open records request form — as well as a bit of mixed messaging from his office.

Public agencies across the Commonwealth must publish that request form in their web posted rules and regulations governing access to their records, per the newly amended KRS 61.876. The AG's last minute filing of the administrative regulation containing that form left these agencies with less than 24 hours to try to bring themselves into compliance with their newly assigned duties under HB 312.

The agencies may not care; the attorney general may not care; indeed, the General Assembly may not care, but Kentucky's residents and even nonresidents do care. Delays and confusion in implementation will result in delays and confusion in records access.