HB1879

House Bill 1879 mandates that all city councils and county quorum courts in Arkansas record their public meetings in a video format. The bill requires these governing bodies to post the resulting video recordings to either their official website or a dedicated social media account within twenty-four hours of the meeting. This requirement applies to all officially scheduled, special, and called open public meetings, excluding executive sessions and volunteer fire departments. Current law regarding public meeting recordings under the Freedom of Information Act is amended to specifically include these video and posting mandates. The bill provides a one-year grace period from the effective date for local government entities to achieve full compliance with these new operational standards.