Agendas & Minutes: Law & Practice Trey Allen UNC School of - - PDF document

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Agendas & Minutes: Law & Practice

Trey Allen UNC School of Government New Clerks’ Institute January 20, 2016

Adapted from a Presentation by

• A. Fleming Bell, II

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• B. Agenda Preparation (pp. 6-7)
• 1. Definition and Purposes
• 2. Who Cares about Agendas?
• 3. Preparation of Agendas
• 4. Distribution of Agendas
• 5. Consent Agendas
• 6. Special Situations
• 7. More Information

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• C. Minutes Preparation (pp. 8-11)
• 1. Purpose of Minutes
• 2. Legal Rules Governing Minutes
• 3. Minutes Approval and Corrections
• 4. The Minutes Book

(Note: Page 11 discusses methods of approving minutes and general accounts of closed sessions.)

Maready v. City of Winston-Salem, 342 N.C. 708 (1996)

• “Generally, ‘[minutes] should contain mainly a

record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members.’”

• “Their purpose is to reflect matters such as

motions made, the movant, points of order, and appeals—not to show discussion or absence of action.”

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Maready (cont’d)

• “In this case, no action was taken at the

closed meetings. Therefore, the cursory reference to ‘discussion’ in the minutes sufficed[.]”

• But remember the “general account”

requirement for closed sessions.

“Uh-oh” Scenarios

• You discover the prior clerk failed to have

the minutes signed. What do you do?

• You discover the prior clerk did not

prepare minutes for some meetings. What do you do?

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Preservation of Minutes

• Must be retained permanently.
• “Preservation duplicates” required “within the

limitations of funds available for the purpose.” G.S. 132-8.2

– Must be durable, accurate, complete and clear. – Should be either a paper or microfilm copy of the

• riginal records. NC Dep’t of Cultural Resources,

Public Records Requiring Human-Readable Preservation Duplicates

Questions?

Trey Allen UNC School of Government 919-843-9019 tallen@sog.unc.edu