Agendas & Minutes: Law & Practice Trey Allen UNC School of - PDF document

1/27/2016 Agendas & Minutes: Law & Practice Trey Allen UNC School of Government New Clerks’ Institute January 20, 2016 Adapted from a Presentation by A. Fleming Bell, II 1

1/27/2016 B. Agenda Preparation (pp. 6-7) 1. Definition and Purposes 2. Who Cares about Agendas? 3. Preparation of Agendas 4. Distribution of Agendas 5. Consent Agendas 6. Special Situations 7. More Information 2

1/27/2016 C. Minutes Preparation (pp. 8-11) 1. Purpose of Minutes 2. Legal Rules Governing Minutes 3. Minutes Approval and Corrections 4. The Minutes Book (Note: Page 11 discusses methods of approving minutes and general accounts of closed sessions.) Maready v. City of Winston-Salem , 342 N.C. 708 (1996) • “Generally, ‘[minutes] should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members.’” • “Their purpose is to reflect matters such as motions made, the movant, points of order, and appeals—not to show discussion or absence of action.” 3

1/27/2016 Maready (cont’d) • “In this case, no action was taken at the closed meetings. Therefore, the cursory reference to ‘discussion’ in the minutes sufficed[.]” • But remember the “general account” requirement for closed sessions. “Uh-oh” Scenarios • You discover the prior clerk failed to have the minutes signed. What do you do? • You discover the prior clerk did not prepare minutes for some meetings. What do you do? 4

1/27/2016 Preservation of Minutes • Must be retained permanently. • “Preservation duplicates” required “within the limitations of funds available for the purpose.” G.S. 132-8.2 – Must be durable, accurate, complete and clear. – Should be either a paper or microfilm copy of the original records. NC Dep’t of Cultural Resources, Public Records Requiring Human-Readable Preservation Duplicates Questions? Trey Allen UNC School of Government 919-843-9019 tallen@sog.unc.edu 5