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CITY OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
City Council Sub-Committee on Licenses, Ordinances and Legal Affairs
RE: Ordinance relative to Public Notice of Availability of Information (Sunshine Ordinance)
Meeting Minutes
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
6:00 pm
City Hall, 2nd Floor
A meeting of the Salem City Council Committee on Ordinances, Licenses and Legal Affairs, co-posted with the City Council Committee of the Whole, was held at 6 pm in the City Council Chambers regarding the City Ordinance relative to public notice and availability of information, also known as the “Sunshine Ordinance”, as found within Chapter 2, Section 2-2026 through 2-2032 of the City’s Code of Ordinances. Councillor Joseph O’Keefe chaired the meeting. All Councilors, except Councilors Furey and Pinto, were in attendance. City employee members of the Council’s sub-committee on the Sunshine Ordinance were also in attendance: Elizabeth Rennard, City Solicitor; Jane Guy, Asst. Director of Planning and Community Development, Eileen Sacco, School Committee Clerk, Cheryl LaPointe, City Clerk; Tom
Watkins and Jason Silva of the Mayor’s office. City Planner Lynn Duncan was present for a portion of the meeting.
Councilor O’Keefe opened the meeting and introduced the Sunshine Committee members that also included himself and Councilor Pelletier. Councillor O’Keefe explained that the Committee recommended changes to the Ordinance which received one of two passages by the Council. He asked City Solicitor Elizabeth Rennard to make a presentation on behalf of the Committee.
Atty. Rennard stated that many months ago, constituent Beverly McSwiggin approached her and Tom Watkins to report that she found that certain board and commissions had not posted all they were required to post on the city’s website. Atty. Rennard stated that she confirmed this and sent out a notice including the Ordinance to all personnel staffing the various boards and commissions. She stated that she got feedback from some staff that they were not always able to comply with the time constraints of posting minutes and various other concerns with the ordinance. About the same time, she reported, Councillor Prevey learned of the compliance issues and the Council established a committee to review the ordinance, its requirements and to make a recommendation to the full council. She added that the
recommendation got first passage and that they were here this evening to discuss changes before final passage. She stated that after first passage, she received communication from resident Jim Kearney. She and Jane Guy met with Mr. Kearney to review the changes and that she had suggested amendments following that meeting and subsequent meetings with city staff. She stated that since Mayor Driscoll came into office, the city’s website offers more public information than before and that the site has won an award for the information it contains.
Jane Guy added that the city is going to enhance the website and stated that she contacted the site host and will be adding three more boards to the automatic email notification plus an “other” category for all other boards. She stated that Virtual Town Hall, web host, recommended not having too many automatic email notices because of confusion. Several residents including James Kearny spoke in favor of having all the 34 boards and commissions on a list available for automatic notice. Resident David Pelletier stated that there are some boards that are very important to people, but that the smaller boards like the Bike Path Committee are not. Atty. Rennard and Ms. Guy stated that the City would list all the primary boards such as Planning Board, Conservation and City Council and include the other boards
like the Bike Path Committee in an “other” category to which residents could subscribe. Ms. Polly Wilbert asked if meeting notices could be posted on the city’s web site as soon as it is known when they will be held. Ms. Guy responded in the affirmative and added that many boards post their meetings for the whole year.
Atty. Rennard continued with her presentation and stated that the language relative to agendas would be clarified and all moved to the section 2-2028. Meeting agendas will be posted on the city’s website 48 hours before the scheduled meeting. Atty. Rennard stated that she could recommend adding back language which was recommended for deletion relative to voiding any action taken when a meeting was not posted on the city’s website. She proposed adding the phrase “except when action is required by statute” to address concerns raised by the City Planner regarding statutory deadlines and constructive approval. Resident Beverly McSwiggin spoke against this and Atty. Rennard responded that she would speak to the planner and report back at the next meeting. Councillor Veno stated that if
subsection (b) of Section 2-2028 is added back in, it should not include the exclusion of council paying bills (#4) because the council doesn’t pay bills.
Atty. Rennard then discussed posting and preparing of minutes of the meeting, Section 2-2029. It was recommended by the Sub-Committee that meeting minutes will be posted on the website as soon as they are typed and become available, but will be no later than 30 days after the meeting. Councillor Sosnowski mentioned that an exception should be made for the posting of minutes for the City Council, since they meet twice a month. A resident mentioned that minutes could be typed on a laptop as the meeting progresses or the use of a smart pen could also be utilized. This was acknowledged by City personnel, but said laptops are scarce and an investment in technology would have to be made in order to do this. Also, the use of audio and video files was discussed by resident David Moisan and wondered if such files, if
made available on the City website, would comply with the Sunshine Ordinance and Open Meeting Law. Councillor Prevey stated that it is critical that minutes become available online prior to the start of that particular board/committees next meeting. Councillor Sosnowski stated that such minutes should be made available online at least 48 hours prior to the start of the next meeting.
Councillor O’Keefe asked the sub-committee members to investigate new technology (purchase of additional laptops, smart pens, and the ability to archive audio and video files on the city website, etc.) for the posting of meeting minutes and agendas.
Atty. Rennard then reviewed the sub-committee recommendations for section 2-2030 on Legal Notices. It was agreed that the provisions removed by the sub-committee will be added back in and a section for Legal Notices will be created on the City website.
Atty. Rennard reviewed the sub-committee recommendations for section 2-2031 on City Contracts. It was discussed that the City’s Purchasing Agent, Albert Hill, will add a link on the Purchasing Agent’s webpage for Com-Pass, a state website which lists contracts and public bids. Current bids and RFP’s are also available on the webpage.
Atty. Rennard reviewed the sub-committee recommendations for section 2-2031 on General Provisions. She stated that this section is overly broad and needs to be better defined. Councillor Sosnowski agreed stating that the City needs to get a better understanding of what documents and files we would like available on the City website. It was mentioned that to post all documents and files on the website that come through City Offices would be both burdensome on City personnel and may also disrupt the amount of memory available on the web server. Hard copies of all documents and files are available to the public should they request such documents from City Offices. Resident Polly Wilbert and Councillor Prevey agreed that private developers should be required to provide the tools necessary to make the information
pertinent to their projects available to the public online.
Councillor Veno stated that the Sunshine Ordinance Sub-Committee process was a failure. Councillor Prevey agreed as did others. Councillor Lovely suggested that future meetings of the sub-committee be held in the evening. Councillor O’Keefe stated that any memebre of the public who would like to be a member of the sub-committee to give their name and contact information to the City Clerk.
Councillor Sosnowski made a motion to keep the matter in Committee and it was seconded.
Meeting Adjourned 9:15
Minutes Recorded by Elizabeth Rennard, Esq. and Tom Watkins
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