Open Meetings Act Set to Meet 21st Century Standards?

[XLFD]

  The Open Meetings Act (OMA) was initially passed by most state legislatures just after the Watergate fiasco exposed the importance of transparent and accountable governance on the national level, and the need for those two qualities at the local and state level grew to confront corruption by increasingly secretive public policy. 

There have been some changes since the original Michigan OMA was passed 46 years ago, most of these were done in the fist ten years of its passage, and were mostly clarifications.  In this 2003 Report, there was a few recommendations to amend the OMA to get it more in line with technology advancements.  But this only led to eventually changing notice requirements in 2012 to incorporate putting up such notice on the public body's webpage (if they had one that was regularly updated).

A more precise revision was lately introduced to the Michigan Law Revision Commission (MLRC) by its executive secretary based on a law article and similar calls to action as noted in this 2012-2013 Update from MLRC.  The MLRC is a legislative committee that reviews and evaluates comprehensive changes and updates to statutes, and there has been a push to update both the FOIA and OMA by the watchdog group The Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The MLRC reviewed six specific policy changes to update the OMA:

1)  Post meeting Notices on the public body website: 

For regularly scheduled meetings, the law requires meeting notices to be posted at the agency’s principle office and other “appropriate” locations. This change would mandate that the meeting notice also to be posted on the public body’s website (if it maintains an official website).

2)  Post minutes of meetings on the public body’s website: 

Currently, minutes must be kept and made available on request.  This change would require such minutes to be available on the website in the same period of time.

3)  Post other documents online:

This would require the posting of other records by the public body that meaningfully apply to agenda items.

4)  Allow recording of open meetings by any device that does not disrupt the meeting:

Currently the law allows individuals to tape record, videotape and broadcast meetings live on radio and television. This amendment would allow members of the public to record meetings with any non-disruptive device and to live stream meetings online.

As an aside, the City of Ludington actually paid good money (see slip from invoice below with a charge of $39) to have the City Attorney research the laws on recording at public meetings after the council and mayor were served with a complaint for violating the Open Meetings Act on November 25, 2013, simply because two citizens recorded the service of process on the council after the public meeting!  This picture has them being recorded by the media (MCP's Rob Alway) at that meeting.

5)  Consider conditions where public bodies may conduct a meeting by videoconferencing, teleconferencing and webcasting:

Elderly, ill, displaced, and handicapped citizens/officials cannot always make these meetings, this may allow real-time attendance and participation by such individuals.

6)  Penalties increased for non-compliance with OMA:

The report indicates stronger penalties for officials who violate the OMA, thereby providing a stronger deterrent.

These recommended improvements all passed muster by the MLRC and will be forwarded to the state legislature to be considered.  Everyone should encourage their representatives to pass these improvements for transparency and accountability.  The City of Ludington already practices the first three recommendations most of the time, but has noticeably been non-compliant often over the last few years. 

[Willy]

Another well  constructed and informative article X. In my opinion, some action should be taken by the those in charge to make it easier and less expensive to obtain information. How about no FOIA request needed. Just go to the Government agency and ask for what you need, then that agency immediately hands over that information. Yes I'm hallucinating.

[XLFD]

If you were one of the chief executive officers of a business and asked one of your paid employees for any record or report on how the business is running and any other written product of their work, do you think they would tell you they would need your request in writing and they would get a reply to you within fifteen business days and charge you double for their salary while they search and respond to it? 

Thanks for your feedback, Willy.  I do have a feeling that these OMA recommendations may fare better than the FOIA changes introduced recently, which looks mostly dead because of the senate's and house's failure to agree on the changes.