Before July 1, when residents wanted to know the date, time, and location for a town board meeting, such as the Board of Selectmen (BOS), they could view the “upcoming meetings” panel on the town website a week or two in advance and make plans to attend. Some committees posted agendas in advance of a meeting, but most did not.
With the advent of the new Open Meeting Law on July 1, 2010, both logistics information and agenda topics are required by law to be posted by the Town Clerk 48 hours before a meeting and to be “conspicuously visible to the public at all hours,” including times Town Hall is closed. The new law also requires that all committees, not just the most conspicuous ones—such as the BOS, School Committee, and Finance Committee—also post logistics, agendas, minutes, and any handouts for a meeting.
These sweeping changes have caused hiccups at Town Hall, especially with the town website. Town Clerk Janet Vellante and Executive Assistant Julie Doucet are in the process of adapting to the laws. When Vellante receives a meeting notice from a board, she logs the committee name, date, and time of the upcoming meeting on the “calendar” section of the town website, but does not post the agenda on the web. Committee chairmen have been advised to copy Doucet on all meeting requests that go to Vellante; the agenda included in that request also goes to Doucet, who then posts the agenda in the “agendas/minutes” section of the website.
This process can cause slip-ups, as in the case of the Finance Committee meeting of Sept. 1, where the meeting was shown in the calendar section of the website, but the agenda was missing from the agendas/minutes section until Sept. 8. (The most recent online minutes from the Finance Committee are from its June 16 meeting.)
The Open Meeting Law Guide published by the Office of the Attorney General requires public bodies “to create and approve minutes in a timely manner.” The law requires that existing minutes “be made available to the public within 10 days upon request, whether they have been approved or remain in draft form.”
The process for updating the town website, the tool many residents use to check town boards meeting status, will require tuning in order for residents to once again be able to plan a week or more in advance to attend meetings. Vellante says she believes that “committee chairmen are waiting until the 48-hour deadline to post meetings so that their agendas can be as complete and accurate as possible.” In light of this, another method for projecting meeting dates beyond the 48-hour deadline is being developed, Doucet says.
