North Adams Committee Ordered to Amend Meeting Minutes
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Two city committees were found to have violated Open Meeting law according to findings issued by the Attorney General's Office in July.
School Building Committee was found to be in violation regarding a meeting held on Jan. 21 and ordered to amend its minutes and the City Council's General Government Committee for a meeting held Feb. 18 for improper posting.
The AG's Office found the School Building Committee meeting minutes for Jan. 21 were insufficient in that they were not detailed enough, failed to include documents presented, and did not identify where the meeting was being held and which committee members participated virtually.
The finding published on July 25 was prompted by a complaint from Marie T. Harpin to the committee on March 11 regarding those issues, a response from the committee on March 19 and revised meeting minutes that the AG's Office also found wanting.
"Following our review, we find that the Committee violated the Open Meeting Law in the ways alleged. In reaching this determination, we reviewed the Open Meeting Law complaint, the Committee's response, the request for further review, a video recording of the Committee's January 21 meeting, the original and revised minutes of the Committee's January 21 meeting, and the minutes of the Committee's February 18 meeting," wrote Assistant Attorney General Carrie Benedon.
A review of the complaint found six committee members participated remotely, which was not announced and that the minutes approved at the Feb. 18 meeting did not reflect; and that the 45-minute "Old Business" portion of the meeting "did not include an accurate summary of the presentations and comments made during the January 21 meeting. As a result, a member of the public who did not attend the meeting could not have understood from the original minutes what occurred at the meeting."
Benedon noted that revised minutes were posted following the complaint which specified the virtual participants and location and expanded on the discussions.
However, she wrote, "Although not expressly raised in the complaint because the minutes were revised after the complaint was filed, we note that even as revised the minutes include insufficient summaries of some discussions during the 'Old Business' portion of the meeting."
The minutes, she said, should include more detail on the three topics covered — budget, design-development and designer update — and still failed to included a PowerPoint presentation and documents reviewed at the meeting.
The committee was ordered to not only comply with Open Meeting Law, but "to further amend the minutes of the January 21 meeting, in accordance with the guidance provided above" within 60 days of the date of the letter.
The letter to the committee can be found here.
The General Government Committee was found to have improperly posting a meeting held Feb. 18.
The complaint had been filed by Jennifer Barbeau to the committee on March 1; the committee responded April 10 and the complaint filed with the Attorney General's Office on May 19.
The committee posted notice on Feb. 4 for a meeting to be held on Tuesday, Feb. 18, then amended the notice on Friday, Feb. 14, to add three new topics related to Council Rules.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Lindberg said the issue was the amended notice, which did not give the proper 48 hours notice because the following Monday was a holiday, Presidents Day.
"As Monday, February 17, was Presidents Day, a legal holiday, the amended notice with the additional topics was not posted 48 hours prior to the meeting, not including Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays," he wrote.
The committee was ordered to comply with Open Meeting Law in the future.
Tags: open meeting complaint,
