8.10. SR 03-21-1994 - Laserfiche WebLink

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~. ..~... "~'.' ""..-. - MPELRA NEWSLETTER - - e Government Data Practices Act and the Open Me.eting L.inY An extremely informat1ve d1scussion of' the Open Meeting Law hnd related pieces of legislation was presented by Bernard E. Steffen of Barnu, Guzy and Steffen, Ltd. The Minnesota Open Meeting Law. which requ1res public bodies to meet in public. was enacted to further three purposes: . to preven t pub li c bod i e s from acti ng secretly wi thout ~he public having an opportunlty to detect improper 1nfluences; . to assure tho pub11c's right to be informed; and e to afford an opportunity for members of the public to present the1r v1ews. Genera lly. the Open Meeti n{J Law is to be construed in favor of public access. The publi c body must use a balancing test to determ1ne whe~her this presumption applies in a speclfic situation. The public body must balance the "public's right to be informed" and the "right to the effective and efficient adm1nistration of pub li c bod i e s . " Furtherance of efficient administration is not an adequate defense if procedures foreclose public discussion altogether. effectively permit the final decision to be made 1n private. or conceal improper influences. . If a public body violates the statute by not ho 1 di ng an open meeti ng. individual members of the body face fines and removal from office. A first violation results in the member being personally subject to a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars. If the same person is found to violate the law three times. the person "shall forfeit any right to serve on [theJ...governing body...for a period of ti me equal to the term of offi ce . , -13:.- such person was then serving." The statute requires that in order for there to be separate violations, the violations must be unrelated. The standard for determi ni ng whether a person has violated the statute is whether the i nd i vi dua l' s conduct is intentional. If the person fails to post notice of the meeting. the standard is whether the act was willful and deliberate. The Open Meeti ng Law requi res that all votes of members must be recorded in a voting journal and that the journal must be made available for public inspection. The statutory provision requi ri ng the body to record the ~ of members likely prohibits the public body from taking secret ballots even if the final overall tally is recorded. However, whether the Legislature intended to requ ire that pub 1 i c bod i e s record individual votes has not been 1 itigated through the appellate courts and the issue remains unsettled. Much of the presentation and discussion focused on what has probably been the most difficult issue involving the Open Meeting Law: those situations in which both the Open Meeting Law and the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act apply to a particular situation. The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act provides that all data maintained by a public body shall be accessible to the public unless expressly classified by law as not public or private. The provision addressing personnel data provides that all personnel data on public employees is private unless specifically listed otherwise. In theory. there i~ no difficulty in applying the Open Meeting Law requi rements to meeti ngs whi ch di scuss public data: public data must be di scussed in an open meeti ng. However in practice. the difficulty lies i~ determining whether information is