2024-02-06 P & Z Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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RELEVANT LINKS: DPO 17-005 (advising The Minnesota Supreme Court has indicated that communication through communication through a letters and telephone calls could violate the open meeting law under letter violated the open meeting law). certain circumstances. Best practice to share information with the entire council is to send it to city staff and have them distribute it. If a council member needs to email the entire council, they should use blind carbon copy (BCC) to add recipients to avoid accidental use of reply all which may constitute the initiation of a discussion among a quorum of the public body. DPO 09-020. DPO 14-015. The commissioner of the Department of Administration has advised that back-and-forth email communications among a quorum of a public body that was subject to the open meeting law in which the members commented on and provided direction about official business violated the open meeting law. However, the commissioner also advised that “one-way communication between the chair and members of a public body is permissible, such as when the chair or staff sends meeting materials via email to all board members, as long as no discussion or decision-making ensues.” O’Keefe v. Carter, No. A12- In contrast, an unpublished decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals 0811 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. concluded that email communications are not subject to the open meeting 31, 2012) (unpublished decision). law because they are written communications and are not a “meeting” for purposes of the open meeting law. The decision also noted that even if email communications are subject to the open meeting law, the substance of the emails in question did not contain the type of discussion that would be required for a prohibited “meeting” to have occurred. The court of appeals noted that the substance of the email messages was not important and controversial; instead, the email communications discussed a relatively straightforward operational matter. The decision also noted that the town board members did not appear to make any decisions in their email communications. Because this decision is unpublished, it is not binding precedent on other courts. In addition, the outcome of this decision might have been different if the email communications had related to something other than operational matters, for example, if the board members were attempting to build agreement on a particular issue that was going to be presented to the town board at a future meeting. Minn. Stat. § 13D.065. The open meeting law was amended in 2014 to provide that “the use of social media by members of a public body does not violate the open meeting law as long as the social media use is limited to exchanges with all members of the general public.” Email is not considered a type of social media under the new law. League of Minnesota Cities Handbook for Minnesota Cities 7/11/2023 Meetings, Motions, Resolutions, and Ordinances Chapter 7 | Page 24