5.1. ERMUSR 03-08-2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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