The balcony in the Hamilton County Commission’s meeting room will be open to all after commissioners tabled a resolution to allow access only by credentialed media members.
The upstairs loft has always been the place for television cameras to set up, and a sign at the bottom of the stairs states that only media is allowed.
But a resolution was put on the agenda last week making the balcony officially off-limits to non-media after what Chairman Sabrena Smedley called a couple of complaints of “people going into the balcony who aren’t media.”
Smedley said the county had no written policy limiting balcony access to the media, and “we either need to have a policy or take down the sign.”
The stumbling block is defining “news media.” One of the initial issues arose over Commissioner Tim Boyd’s daughter streaming commission meetings on Facebook Live from the balcony – is she a member of the media? How about a blogger?