Legislation that would have imposed additional constraints on public meeting agendas has been tabled and referred to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Council.
SB 876 (Ebbin) was unanimously laid on the table by the House General Laws Committee’s Procurement/Open Government Subcommittee on a vote of 7-0 with a referral from the chair to the FOIA Council. VACo expects to work with the Council post-session to address the concerns raised by the bill.
As previously reported, VACo opposed SB 876, as introduced, because it did not provide for the addition of, and action on, agenda issues that were emerging or required swift attention. The bill expands current notice information required of Public Bodies providing that the notice shall include a proposed agenda listing all items expected to be considered by the public body at the meeting and that agenda items shall be sufficiently descriptive to give the public reasonable notice of the matters to be considered at the meeting. What is particularly problematic about the bill is added language that provides that amendments to the proposed agenda may be made prior to the meeting, but the public body shall not take any final action on those amended or additional agenda items. This provision would essentially prevent modifying the agenda at a meeting and would prohibit a local public body from responding promptly to issues.
Operation of local government requires action on issues that come with the day-to-day complexities of safely and efficiently operating of local government functions. Requiring public bodies to wait until the next meeting, which may be a month away, to act, is unreasonable at best and a public safety concern at worst.
The patron considered concerns raised by VACo and other public bodies and introduced a substitute to the bill which provides in part that the agenda and any subsequent revisions shall be posted on the public body’s official public government website, if any, and made available to the public prior to the meeting. It also provides that any items added to the agenda after the meeting commences may be considered and discussed at the meeting, but final action shall not be taken on such an item unless the matter is time sensitive. This new language would allow action on matters added to the agenda that are time sensitive, but all other matters added cannot be acted on until a subsequent meeting.
VACo Contacts: Jeremy R. Bennett and Phyllis Errico, Esq., CAE