Meeting Minutes with Extra
I've recently attended several meetings of public bodies (not municipalities) for which the meeting minutes reflected facts and statements that were not presented or made during the meeting.
One example is a board awarded a contract for services but did not reveal the charges proposed by the bidders. The meeting minutes state "The cost of each service is as follows . . . ." The board members did have the proposals in front of them, so they would have known that information. But it certainly was not stated or discussed.
Thoughts on whether this is proper? Do the prices qualify as a matter "considered by the public body" even though they didn't discuss them?
In another instance, the clerk added facts to the minutes - statements from audience members and agreements of board members with those facts, neither of which happened.
These meetings are all recorded, so there is proof that the minutes don't match up with the audio.
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Kim Spady
25 O.S. 312(A) creates the requirement for minutes which it describes as
being the official summary of the proceedings which shows which governing
body members were present/absent, the "matters considered" by the body, and
the actions taken.
I don't have heartburn with the minutes containing referencing information
that *was considered *by the Council at the meeting, even though it was
written information rather than something that was said out loud. For
example, if a Council were reviewing the bids that were submitted on a
project, I wouldn't have a problem with the minutes noting that Council
reviewed the bids that were received on the X project in the amounts of $X
(vendor 1), $X+1 (vendor 2), etc. - even though that information may not
have been stated verbally, it was still information that was presented to
and considered by the Council during the meeting. Now, if the minutes were
written in a way that suggested the information was conveyed verbally when
it was conveyed in writing, I'd probably want them tweaked to remove that
suggestion. For example, I've had instances where a person will get a
public hearing notice on a zoning issue and, instead of coming to the
hearing, they will send a letter. If a copy of the letter is supplied to
the Council/Commission members, I wouldn't have a problem with there being
a notation of that in the minutes. But I wouldn't want the minutes to
read Bobby
Joe from 2nd street stated his objection to the proposed rezoning based on
X - since that suggests that he was actually in attendance and spoke
during the public hearing. But I wouldn't have a concern if it merely
stated Bobby Joe from 2nd street sent a letter which was distributed to
the members which and stated his objection to the proposed rezoning based
on X. That makes clear that it was information submitted in writing and
doesn't suggest that he was present for the public hearing.
I do have significant heartburn with the minutes reflecting that
information was considered (whether stated verbally or even submitted in
writing) which was not, in fact, considered during the meeting. And I'd
start popping the antacids if the minutes reflected that members agreed
with these statements (where neither the statements nor the agreement ever
occurred during the meeting). Perhaps these were things that were said
prior to the meeting, and the member(s) agreed with the statements outside
of the meeting. But the minutes are the official summary of the meeting -
not a summary of what happens outside of a meeting. The only time there
would be any reason to have something like that included in the minutes
would be if the out-of-meeting statement were repeated during the
meeting. For example, my old, long time planning commission chairman would
frequently go make an informal site visit at properties before a meeting.
And he would often tell the commissioners what he saw, including telling
them anything of relevance that he might have been told when he was out
there. I vividly remember when phase 2 of our last big development was
coming up for approval on a preliminary plat that the Chairman noted
conversations he had with some of the first residents in phase 1 and some
of the businesses just outside the development about drainage issues they
were having (all with the purpose of wanting to talk about drainage
concerns for the next phase). I wouldn't have a problem if the Clerk chose
to include his summary of those conversations so long as it was clear that
they were conversations that he had outside of the meeting and that he
relayed this information during the meeting. But that's the only reason I
can think of that the minutes would ever reflect a statement (verbal or
otherwise) which was not actually considered during the meeting.
Matt
On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 12:59 PM Kimberlee Spady via Oama <
oama@lists.imla.org> wrote:
I’ve recently attended several meetings of public bodies (not
municipalities) for which the meeting minutes reflected facts and
statements that were not presented or made during the meeting.
One example is a board awarded a contract for services but did not reveal
the charges proposed by the bidders. The meeting minutes state “The cost of
each service is as follows . . . .” The board members did have the
proposals in front of them, so they would have known that information. But
it certainly was not stated or discussed.
Thoughts on whether this is proper? Do the prices qualify as a matter
“considered by the public body” even though they didn’t discuss them?
In another instance, the clerk added facts to the minutes – statements
from audience members and agreements of board members with those facts,
neither of which happened.
These meetings are all recorded, so there is proof that the minutes don’t
match up with the audio.
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Kim Spady
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