Real questions from New Yorkers, answered by the coalition. Search first, your question may already be here.
Can you please clarify a few details:
1) when agendas and supporting materials are supposed to be published ahead of Town and Village Planning Board and Board of Education meetings?
2) After meetings, when presentations displayed and discussed at such meetings are to be released to the public.
We see slippage here and would like to file a notification or “complaint” to ask local officials to clean things up, but we’d like to lean on the law or regulations on these points.
You raise an interesting question, which was addressed in an opinion by the Committee on Open Government. As the Committee consists of the Supervisor and two board members, the Committee is subject to the Open Meetings Law as far as notifying the public etc.
The opinion is linked below:
“… members of the Legislature who are not members of the Committee may attend the Committee meeting, but if the intent is for the meeting to be a “Committee” meeting and not a meeting of the “Legislature,” the non-Committee members should not be involved in the discussion of Committee business. Non-Committee legislators should only be permitted to comment in the same way that members of the general public are permitted to comment.”
A town councilman is under investigation for videotaping and posting on social media an obviously distressed naked woman on Main Street in Saugerties.
He’s a fireman, was in the official assistant chief’s car, with his friend who is not a fireman, and did nothing to help but left the scene after taping her twice.
Both clips are about ten seconds. The parents are upset and filed a Police report.
Are these documents subject to FOIL?
The current law in NY is that legal notices must be printed in a newspaper.
Below is a link to a resource which will give you more information. Several years ago a bill was introduced in the state legislature to eliminate the paper requirement and just do online. As legal notices are an important revenue source, newspapers oppose the legislation and it has not passed.
https://www.pnrc.net/2023/07/11/is-new-york-the-wild-west-of-public-notice/
Section 103(d)(1) of the Public Officers Law, commonly referred to as the Open Meetings Law allows for anyone to record a public meeting. The public’s right to record meetings has been part of the Open Meetings Law since 2011.
(d) 1. Any meeting of a public body that is open to the public shall be open to being photographed, broadcast, webcast, or otherwise recorded and/or transmitted by audio or video means.
The town supervisor is incorrect in his position. You or anyone else has the right to record a public meeting.
Linked below is an opinion from the NY Committee on Open Government, which may be helpful as well.
https://docsopengovernment.dos.ny.gov/coog/otext/o5335.html
The town is required to hold one public hearing during the preparation of the plan and one public hearing prior to the adoption of the plan.
If they held a public hearing and made revisions, they are not required to have another hearing due to changes being made.
In 2022, the Open Meetings Law was amended to allow for members of a public body to participate remotely, as long as a quorum of members are present in person.
In order for members to participate remotely, a town must pass a resolution which establishes rules for allowable “extraordinary circumstances” when participating remotely is allowed. As part of passing a local law or resolution on this topic a public hearing must be held.
I don’t think the intention of this new law is to allow an elected official to go to Florida for the winter or to take another job out of state.
It will be interesting to see how the town writes up what constitutes “extraordinary circumstances”. Your local news media may be interested in this.
A FOIL request is only required if the town requires it. There is nothing that prevents anyone walking into town hall verbally requesting a document and the town clerk providing it. In some places that is how it is done and should be done. There is nothing in the law that requires utilizing the FOIL process to provide information to the public.
Terms are important. There is a difference between an “RFP” process and a “bidding” process. With bids, typically they are opened in public and the town goes with the low bidder when seeking work and the high bidder when selling something. If the bids have been opened, all information is accessible to the public.
RFP’s are a different process, typically used to hire professional firms and with an RFP the winner is made not just on price alone but other factors as well, such as experience, etc. RFP info can be released after the process of selecting someone has been completed.
As far as the wording of your request, I assume in the case of bids you are looking for the names of who bid and the amount of the bid. For an RFP you probably want to see what grading criteria was established, the evaluation results and the proposals submitted.
What was the reason given for the executive session?
A specific reason has to be provided for an executive session motion to be proper. A proper motion could be to meet in executive session to discuss “matters which will imperil the public safety if disclosed”. There must be a quorum of members present in person to vote on the executive session motion. As the public does not have the right to attend an executive session, the executive session itself could be done by Zoom.
If an executive session was held, the board always has to return to continue or end the meeting in public.
The executive session occurred during the 5:30 pm work session, did the 7pm board meeting occur?
In order for a meeting to occur with some board members present in person and some appearing by Zoom, the town is supposed to have adopted a local law which puts forth what constitutes “extraordinary circumstances” for a board member to appear virtually instead of in person. If a board member is going to appear by Zoom then the public is supposed to be given the opportunity to observe the meeting by Zoom as well.
Your question is an interesting one, with a lot of different parts to consider.
There is no law that states what is discussed in an executive session cannot be disclosed. With limited exceptions such as an individual’s health issues there is no requirement to discuss things in an executive session. An executive session is an option but a town could discuss everything in public.
Many school boards have policies that prohibit disclosing what has been discussed in an executive session and there have been instances where a school board member has been removed for disclosing executive session discussions.
You should check whether your town has a policy or rule regarding executive sessions.
In a 2011 court case, an Erie County Supreme Court Judge ruled that recording an executive session was improper. The Judge stated in her decision:
“An issue did come up over a tape recording that someone did of an executive session of the School Board meeting that involved the Petitioner’s daughter. There is no question the taping of the executive session is improper and violates the confidentiality that is encompassed in the executive session.”
This is an Erie County lower court decision that is not binding on other courts. I am not aware of any other court decisions on this issue.
Below is an opinion from the NY State Committee on Open Government regarding the recording of executive sessions.
https://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/otext/o5384.html
While it is inappropriate for the town supervisor to insult you with obscene language, posting a recording from an executive session on your Facebook page may result in you being attacked for recording and posting executive session conversations.
You could also bring the Supervisor’s behavior to light by posting about it on your Facebook page without posting the recording.
I live in NY and I am curious to know if I could use FOIA to request expense reports from trips taken by my NYS Assemblyman.
The East Aurora Union Free School District has switched to a new Board Doc platform.
Agenda related documents, including minutes, are no longer posted to the website. The Board Clerk’s explanation, that she does not post these items because she does not “anticipate” the Board will discuss these documents, seems to be a strange interpretation of the law.
Here is the statement I received:
“Section 103(e) pertains to documents “which are scheduled to be the subject of discussion by a public body during an open meeting.” Since we do not anticipate that these documents will be the subject of discussion during tonight’s meeting, Section 103(e) does not require that we post them in advance. “
Your thoughts?
I am a reporter working on a story today about the Saratoga Springs Public Safety Commissioner proposing an ordinance related to public comment.
If approved, the ordinance would require people to provide their legal name and proof of residence, employment or that they own property in the city in order to speak. The ordinance would further limit a 30 minute comment period (4 minutes for each speaker) to residents first, then employees and then property owners.
I would love your comment on this for my article. Have you ever seen other communities do this?
Link to the ordinance
Do you believe volunteer fire departments have to follow the Freedom of Information law?
I came across a baffling decision by a local volunteer department & need to learn more about the impetus for moving forward with building a new fire hall.
What is the ruling on whether an individual who is the subject of an ethics complaint can request the meeting of the ethics committee be held in public?
In Watertown we have a city councilman who has had a complaint filed against him by the mayor.
There is a meeting scheduled. The agenda has an executive session on it. The councilman has requested the meeting be held in public.
Question from a reporter:
The Port Chester Board of Trustees appointed an Advisory Form-Based Code Study Committee at their last meeting.
When I went to write about it, I was taken aback by the following section, which states:
“Each member shall not appear at a public meeting or provide public comments, as a member of the committee or as a citizen, to at any time criticize, question, comment or provide insight about the Board as to its actions on any matter related to the charge of the Committee, unless directed by the Board.”
Another distressing but not as egregious section of the resolution reads:
“Members of the committee “shall each acknowledge that they will serve to the best of their ability, fairly, honestly and impartially, without regard to personal employment or financial gain, without regard to their own social or political position or beliefs and without regard to their own personal and familial benefit, and each shall acknowledge that such service is at the pleasure of the Board and in a strictly advisory capacity.”
I would appreciate your opinion on this.
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