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 Town Clerk during the course of any public meeting of any public body.
(B) The Town Clerk shall prepare and keep written minutes and recordings of public meetings in accordance with the state’s Open and Public Meetings Act. Minutes and recordings are to be made available to the public as required by the Act.
(C) The Town Clerk shall transcribe the minutes into a public document, which will be as soon as possible after the meeting and definitely before the next meeting of the public body, which document will be available to the public and shall be clearly identified as awaiting formal approval, draft or unapproved or with some other appropriate notice that the proposed minutes are subject to change until formally approved.
(D) The public body shall consider the unapproved minutes at the next meeting of the public body and they shall be approved by motion of the public body, or vote to correct or amend the minutes, and vote to approve the amended minutes after which the minutes become a public document available to any member of the public who requests to read or copy the approved 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 public meeting held by the public body immediately following the public body’s receipt of the proposed minutes from the Clerk, the proposed minutes shall be deemed to have been approved by the public body and will stand approved.
(F) Once the 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 Town 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 the public as appropriate under state law.
(Ord. 09-13-2012, passed 9-13-2012)