MMA weighs in on new open meeting law regulations

After hearing concerns from city and town officials about the cost and inefficiency of the posting requirement in the revised open meeting law, the MMA asked the attorney general to revise proposed regulations to allow municipal websites to be used as the sole complement to normal posting to meet the new “all hours” requirement for public meeting notices.

The amended open meeting law requires that the municipal clerk post meeting notices in a “manner conspicuously visible to the public at all hours in or on the municipal building in which the clerk’s office is located,” but the law allows alternative methods where the attorney general determines it would provide more effective public notice.

Emergency regulations released by the attorney general’s office were drafted to implement the new rules that took effect on July 1. Public hearings were held on the regulations in early August and a final draft, after consideration of comments, is expected to be released in mid-September, to take effect on Oct. 1, when the emergency regulations expire.

The regulations provide a number of alternative posting methods, but none that would allow posting on municipal websites as the sole complement to the customary posting in the local city or town hall in order to have postings available to the public 24 hours each day, seven days a week. The alternative methods in the regulations allow Web posting, but only if accompanied by a meeting posting on a bulletin board visible at all hours at a municipal building or access to the Web inside the building.

The regulations also allow for cable television and newspaper posting, but only when these or bulletin board postings are also available at a municipal building. Telephone-based audio recording of meetings postings would also be allowed.

In written comments on the regulations, the MMA argued that the requirement that meeting notices be in paper form at a municipal building, in an electronic display, or in a telephone-based audio recording for the purpose of meeting the “all hours” requirement is an unnecessary financial burden on cities and towns and is not the most effective or helpful way of providing notice to citizens. The MMA recommended that the regulations be amended to allow the “all hours” requirement to be met by posting on the municipal website.

The MMA letter noted that the Internet is already an effective and accepted method of keeping the public informed of meetings of local public bodies and would be almost universally more available and convenient to all persons, including the disabled and others with limited mobility or those who may be out-of-town for a period of time, than the alternatives allowed in the regulations.

State public bodies may use the Internet to meet the posting requirements in the open meeting law.

• MMA’s comments on proposed regulations governing the open meeting law