The following shall be the policy and procedure for the approval of minutes for this municipality.
(A) Written minutes shall be taken for all public meetings of any public body of this municipality. The minutes of all public meetings of any public body of this municipality shall be recorded and taken down by the Meeting Clerk during the course of any public meeting of the public body.
(B) Within 15 working days from the end of the meeting, the Meeting Clerk shall prepare proposed minutes for the meeting and give a copy of the proposed minutes to each member of the public body for his or her review and comments.
(C) Once the proposed minutes have been given to the members of the public body, the Meeting Clerk shall immediately make available to the public the proposed written minutes, which shall be clearly identified as “awaiting formal approval” or “unapproved” or with some other appropriate notice that the proposed minutes are subject to change until formally approved and they shall become a public document available to any member of the public who requests to read or copy the proposed minutes.
(D) The public body shall consider the proposed minutes for approval at the first regularly scheduled meeting of the public body that immediately follows the Meeting Clerk giving the proposed minutes to the members of the public body. The proposed minutes would only need to be considered if there were a sufficient number of members present who were at the previous meeting for which the minutes were prepared such that the members present could approve the accuracy of the minutes. If there are an insufficient number of the members present to approve the minutes, the public body could defer consideration of the minutes until the next meeting wherein a sufficient number of the members are present. The members of the public body shall either approve the proposed written minutes as presented or vote to correct and amend the proposed written minutes and then approve the corrected and amended written minutes.
(E) If the public body fails to consider the proposed minutes, or does not take any action to approve the proposed minutes, at the first regularly scheduled public meeting held by the public body (with sufficient members present at the former meeting) immediately following the public body’s receipt of the proposed minutes from the Meeting Clerk, the proposed minutes shall be deemed to have been approved by the public body and will stand as proposed. As noted above, the public body need not consider the proposed minutes if an insufficient number of members who were present at the prior meeting are present at the subsequent meeting, and failure to do so would not constitute a de facto approval.
(F) Once the proposed minutes have either been approved by the public body, or have been deemed to have been approved by the inaction of the public body, they shall become the official record of the proceedings of the public body and shall be signed by the Clerk of the meeting and shall be retained in the official records of this municipality and shall be a public document available for the inspection and copying by members of the public as appropriate under state law.
(Ord. 62, passed 8-6-2009)