Minutes and Agendas

Our city council has changed its agendas to include only basic information, with more detailed details—such as preferred vendors—available only in a separate memo posted online.

I recently reviewed the minutes from a December 2024 meeting to see if they included any of the more detailed information found in the memos. They did not. The minutes simply reflect the language from the agenda without additional details.

For example, Item 2 in the minutes states that a contract was awarded to four successful bidders for an animal shelter project valued at just over $4 million. However, the minutes do not name the vendors—this information appears only in the separate memo.

Here is a link to the minutes:
Council Meeting Minutes – December 18, 2024

My questions:

• Can the minutes be considered accurate if key details, such as vendor names, are omitted from items ultimately approved by the council?
• Are there any standards or guidelines on what should or must be included in official minutes?
• Are there any laws or regulations that govern this, or is it at the discretion of the council?
• More broadly, do you see the concern here? Do you think this approach is appropriate?

The Village of Saugerties recently voted on a resolution spontaneously, without prior notice, and without including it on the agenda.

A village trustee simply asked for the Board to vote on it during a Board meeting. The public was not informed that a vote might be taken. Is that legal?

Thank you for your response. This sort of thing happens often—the Village Board will vote on items that aren’t on the agenda.

There is nothing in the law that I am aware of that restricts how a public body uses a consent agenda. In fact, there is no requirement in the Open Meetings Law for a public body to use an agenda at all.

Each town board is able to set their own rules and procedures. Other municipalities use a consent agenda where items that have unanimous agreement at a pre-meeting work session are placed on a consent agenda and approved in one motion.

I have seen Amherst meetings where 100 items are approved in one motion, and two or three items are discussed and voted on. It is certainly not a good practice.

All you can do is ask them to stop using the consent agenda the way they are.

Perhaps your organization can send a formal letter to the town board explaining your objections as to the way the consent agenda is being used and ask them to stop.

Copy the news media.

Talk about it during public comment time at the meeting.

If the town board members received a copy of the audit that was discussed prior to the meeting then it should have been posted online 24 hours prior for the public to see as required by the Open Meetings Law. It is a disservice to the public for town board members to be discussing a document that the public has not been able to review.

It is unfortunate that not a single board member took the time to respond to your email.

Looking at the town board agenda I see several resolutions listed, for discussion those should have been posted online 24 hours prior for the public to see as well.

Feel free to share this response with your town board members and local news media. It is important to educate elected officials and sometimes the news media can bring attention to these issues.

I previously provided you a response to me from the District Clerk of the (school district name omitted) regarding her rationale that attachments need not be included on the agenda posted to the website for any agenda items that are not “scheduled for discussion”. You kindly gave me permission to forward your response to the Clerk. Nevertheless, the practice of omitting many attachments continued.

Recently we wrote the District Clerk again and asked for any interpretation of the school attorney that supports her exclusions re attachments. She wrote:

“Mrs. (omitted),

Per consult with our legal counsel:
The Open Meetings Law does not require the Board to post attachments to every agenda item. Section 103(e) of the Open Meetings Law pertains to documents “which are scheduled to be the subject of discussion by a public body during an open meeting.” If the Board does not anticipate that certain documents will be the subject of discussion during the meeting, Section 103(e) does not require that they be posted.

Here is an opinion from the Committee on Open Government which confirms this :
https://docsopengovernment.dos.ny.gov/coog/otext/o5341.htm
This opinion involves Board Meeting minutes and confirms that when they are not scheduled to be discussed during the meeting, “there would be no obligation to post them online prior to a meeting.” This same analysis would apply to any document that is not scheduled for discussion during the meeting.

Thank you.”

I am making two assumptions about her response:
1) I believe the link cannot be accessed because it is not available on the OML website since it is prior to 1993 and no longer consistent with the 2021 amended law.

2) I also believe that their claim re public agenda items “not scheduled for discussion” violates the parliamentary procedures per Robert’s Rules that they adopt Policy #103.01 re Public Meetings. Unfortunately, their approach, of which they speak with pride, is that they consistently vote unanimously on all public resolutions. How would they know they don’t “anticipate discussion” of a particular item unless they previously reviewed the items together away from the board table? Further, all public agenda items are subject to parliamentary procedure that allows any board member to discuss a resolution once it is moved and seconded.

Are these two assumptions correct?

If a public authority holds a meeting and the public is allowed to speak, is the public authority required to post the public discussion along with its meeting minutes?

Can it publish its official business and leave out of the published minutes, comments made by the public?

Thank you.

Is there any reason why Board Minutes (for a NY town) cannot contain extras to help get things accomplished, such as Action Items (would have name, task, estimated completion date as a minimum).

We have a Who’s On First shtick at Board meetings here in Elma that’s driving us up the wall.