The following shall be the policy and procedure for the approval of minutes for the town.
(A) Written minutes shall be taken for all public meetings of any public body of the town. The minutes of all public meetings of any public body of the town shall be recorded and taken down by the meeting clerk during the course of any public meeting of the public body.
(B) Within 14 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 a 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) (1) The public body shall consider the proposed minutes for approval at the first meeting of the public body that immediately follows the meeting clerk giving the proposed minutes to the members of the public body.
(2) 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 at that meeting.
(E) If the public body fail 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 meeting clerk, the proposed minutes shall be deemed to have been approved by the public body and will stand as proposed.
(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 town and shall be a public document available for the inspection and copying by members of the public as appropriate under state law.
(Ord. 2009-05, passed 12-17-2009)