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Electronic communication makes a serial meeting easier by allowing council or committee <br />members to forward messages from one person to the next, to respond to one another via blog <br />comments, or to chat via social media vehicles such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Imagine <br />one council member e-mailing another to suggest the pros and cons of a particular city decision. <br />The recipient forwards the a-mail to another council member, along with his or her own comments <br />and interpretations. <br />Even if the last council member to receive the e-mail doesn't reply to the originator or the council <br />member who forwarded the message, the three members have still discussed city business outside <br />a public forum. <br />A similar situation could occur if council members respond to one another's blog, comment about <br />city business on Facebook, or communicate via amicro-blog such as Twitter. A violation could be <br />found where serial electronic communications are used to reach a decision. <br />Many cities are moving toward electronic meeting packets for councils and committees, often sent <br />via e-mail attachments. This sort of one-way distribution of information is fine in terms of the <br />Minnesota Open Meeting Law, remembering that any materials relating to the agenda items of a <br />meeting distributed to members must also be made available to the public as well. <br />City officials should start to get concerned, though, when one or more council members use the <br />"reply to all" feature in a-mail to respond to the content of the meeting materials, or otherwise <br />begin a discussion by e-mail about the packet, or discuss <br />agenda items on social media sites. This can begin to look a lot Learn More <br />like non-public discussion of city business. <br />Suggestions <br />One suggestion is that council members never communicate to <br />one-another using electronic means, but instead treat electronic <br />media such as a-mail only as~a way to receive information from <br />the city clerk or administrator. <br />If a council member has information to share electronically <br />with the rest of the group, he or she might send it to the clerk <br />and ask for it to be distributed from the clerk to everyone else <br />(electronically or in paper form). <br />Using the clerk as the clearinghouse for information <br />distribution is probably a safer alternative than having council <br />members communicate directly, although it doesn't completely <br />eliminate concerns about violating the open meeting law. Even <br />this clearinghouse concept could provide opportunity for three <br />or more council members to exchange opinions about city <br />b 't' rt t th t th 't l k b f d <br />Read more about risks <br />related to electronic <br />communications between <br />council members, and social <br />media and cities, from the <br />League: <br />Open Meeting Law Defense <br />Coverage <br />Developing a Computer <br />Use Policy <br />Social Media and Cities: <br />usmess, so i s impo an a e ci y c er e aware o an <br />watch for possible issues. Finally, this model would still present problems in Standard Plan cities, <br />where the clerk is also a member of the council. <br />• <br />• <br />• <br />2 <br />