[MassHistPres] emails as public records

Mon Oct 5 18:28:40 EDT 2009

Hi everyone,
Yes, the emails of public officials doing municipal business, i.e. local
Historical Commissions, are, by definition, public record, whether they are
on your personal computer or on a Town account.

The Open Meeting Law comes into play when emails are shared among committee
members. The Open Meeting Law has been violated if a quorum of a committee
shares committee business in an email, even if it is in serial order. That
is, on a five-member committee, if Member 1 sends an email to Member 2, who
then sends it to Member 3, the committee has broken the law. The same is
true of phone calls. There is sometimes a question of whether the
information has been of a deliberative nature or simply administrative. But
this can be a gray area, which is why the AG recommends that committees
avoid email, period.

To be practical, volunteer committees without support staff regularly use
email for sending agendas, draft meeting minutes, reports, etc. My personal
opinion is that the Open Meeting Law is being followed if the information is
simply sent out to committee members (with no opinions, recommendations on
voting, etc.), so that people can read it in preparation for an upcoming
open meeting. The spirit of the law is, as others have noted, to have
municipal business and decision making done in public, where everyone can
observe the process.

In addition to the problems already noted here, violations can, in some
circumstances, lead to a professional liability suit against the Town and
Commission members.

Hope this is useful.
Susan McLaughlin
Town of Stow Historical Commission
 _____________________________________________________________________
Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Minutes becoming public (George Shaw)

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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 22:18:37 -0400
From: "George Shaw" <geo1shaw at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public
To: "blever3043 at aol.com" <blever3043 at aol.com>, masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Message-ID: <380-22009101521837843 at mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

If you use your private email account to conduct public business you  may
have to make all correspondence available to a litigant. They will decide
what is relevant or a judge will ,when you argue that the love notes to your
mistress aren't pertinent and shouldn't be public knowledge. Which once it
is argued in court is available to the public.
Email addresses are cheap if not free, any community that doesn't provide
them to their volunteers or paid servants for that matter are doing a
disservice to everybody.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Sent: 10/3/2009 8:41:21 AM 
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public

Its not about how much time or effort volunteers devote to their community.
I applaud people who donate their time away from their jobs, families, and
personal lives to give to their community.  Its about following the law
plain and simple.  Emails between a quorum of commission members about a
project or issue relative to your commission should not happen, that is what
public meetings are for.  Those of you who are commission members HC or HDC
often are in the position of affecting people's use of their private
property.  That is something that should be respected at all times.
Discussions need to be held at your meetings so that the applicant and/or
public can listen and participate.  It does't matter if its your private
email account, you are doing muncipal bussiness.  You could be santioned
and/or have your action taken pertaining to that discussion invalidated.
Actions in violation of p! rocedures, regulations, and preservation laws
ect. will damage the reputation of!
  your commission and will hurt you community's preservation efforts.  Here
is a link to the open meeting law.  If you have any questions you should
contact the Attorney General's Office.

http://www.mass.gov/Cago/docs/Government/openmtgguide.pdf

Brian Lever

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcia Starkey <mdstarkey at crocker.com>
To: sbragdon at comcast.net; geo1shaw at mindspring.com; masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Sent: Fri, Oct 2, 2009 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public

Does this question neglect to consider that most HC members use their own
private email accounts (among many other unclaimed contributions) ? 

Marcia Starkey
Greenfield HC
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Susan Bragdon 
To: geo1shaw at mindspring.com ; masshistpres at cs.umb.edu 
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public

I believe if it is between 2 or more members, and it might be 3, then it is
considered a public hearing and must be open to all..
-s bragdon

From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of George Shaw
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 7:19 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public

based on the recent controversy in Boston regarding deleted emails. I
believe that any correspondence pertinent to the functioning of the board
would be a matter of public record. As well as any conversations between
members of a board or the public regarding pending matters or the general
functioning of the board. I don't think that anybody wants to have to
explain to a judge why their board violated open meeting laws and shouldn't
have a decision overturned because of it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: jfeist at charter.net;masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Sent: 9/29/2009 6:35:13 PM 
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Minutes becoming public

Does anybody know if emails between committee members have to be made public

David Kelman 
9 Crown Street 
Milton,Ma.02186 
(617) 296 1246 

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