After the threat of an open meetings lawsuit from The Citizen, the Fayette County School System has decided that Thursday night’s meeting of the redistricting committee will be a public meeting.

The controversy started after the Aug. 16 meeting of the committee that is redrawing the boundary lines for the county’s elementary schools. School official said that future meetings would involve only the committee members, and that the media would not be allowed to be present to report on the redistricting efforts.

But late last week, The Citizen threatened a lawsuit if the meeting was not open to the public. In an email response Monday morning, school officials did not agree with the paper’s legal assessment, but decided to let the public attend.

“As per our legal counsel, the boundary committee meetings do not fall under the Sunshine Law for open meetings since neither the Fayette County Board of Education nor the superintendent appointed the committee nor would be present at redistricting discussions. The reason for restricting the meeting to committee members was so to create a forum where they would feel comfortable to speak openly and honestly,” wrote spokesperson Melinda Berry-Dreisbach.

But officials conceded that redistricting is “a sensitive issue” and want the issue to be “as transparent as possible.”

“(Assistant Superintendent of Operations) Sam Sweat checked with some of our citizen committee members and they are fine with the media observing the meetings. Any materials disseminated to the committee are subject to Open Records Law and will be made available to the public,” Berry-Dreisbach said in her email.

In a phone call Monday morning, Berry-Dreisbach also said that since the media was allowed at the meeting, that members of the public would also be allowed to attend.

The school system came under fire last November after new boundaries were approved for Bennett’s Mill Middle School. After the process was completed, Sweat said he wanted to do the process differently this year for the elementary school boundaries.

The new boundaries are slated to be presented to the school board in November and will take affect next year when the Inman Elementary School opens.