Marengo officials learn details of meeting, records laws

MARENGO — Alexander Lee, agency council for Iowa Public Information Board, trained current Marengo city council members, future city council members, city officials and the police chief in open meetings and open records laws during the Nov. 12 City Council meeting.

The training was part of an informal resolution agreed to by the City of Marengo after a complaint of open records violations was filed with the IPIB by Marengo resident Matt Loffer earlier this year.

Known as the Sunshine Laws, Iowa Code Sections 21 and 22 govern governmental meetings and records.

Code Section 21.1 says the purpose of the Sunshine Laws is to provide transparency. The Iowa Legislature decided that transparency takes precedence over other considerations, such as efficiency, said Lee.

Governmental bodies are subject to open meeting laws, said Lee. That includes city councils, school boards, county boards and trustee boards. All new members are required by law to receive training on Code Sections 21 and 22.

What is a meeting?

Defining a meeting is probably the most important part of chapter 21, said Lee. If a quorum of members of the governmental body are gathered and deliberation or actions within the scope of that body’s policymaking duties occurs, a meeting is taking place.

Regardless of what a governmental body calls the meeting — a meeting, a workshop or a retreat — if deliberation or action within the scope of the body’s policymaking duties takes place, it’s a meeting according to Iowa law, Lee said.

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Deliberation is a low threshold, said Lee. If a body is only receiving information, it are not conducting a meeting. “If you’re discussing opinions or the reasons behind those opinions,” said Lee, a meeting may be occurring.

Members of a governmental body can discuss social issues when they are together and not be conducting a meeting, said Lee. They may also discuss governmental issues that are not under their authority.

Coordinating times and places of meetings or changing venues can be discussed by a quorum without violating the law, said Lee.

Public officials often meet in public at community events, such as dedications or festivals. If the body is meeting at those events, it’s a good idea to let the public know ahead of time that they’ll all be there together, said Lee. It avoids the appearance of secrecy.

The public can find advisory opinions on the issue on the IPIB website, ipib.iowa.gov, said Lee.

Emails and texts

With the addition of digital communications in the last several decades, new problems with transparency have arisen.

“We’ve seen this in a few recent cases that have come up,” said Lee.

In one case, council members were responding to a Facebook post in the comments section. Because a quorum was participating in the comments and the comments were a discussion of issues under their authority, they were essentially conducting a meeting on the platform without prior notice.

“You can receive information without deliberating,” said Lee, but once deliberating begins, if there’s a quorum, it’s a meeting.

The same can happen with group emails. Lee suggested using the BCC feature on emails to avoid replying to all members which could, in essence, constitute a meeting via email.

Public participation

Governmental bodies are not yet required to provide electronic access to meetings for the public, though they must provide an option for members to call in, said Lee.

Bodies are not required to allow the public to speak during meetings, but if they do allow public comment, they can regulate how much time is allowed, though they cannot restrict the content of the comments, said Lee.

Even if people are allowed to comment, they should not expect answers to questions. There’s a fine line between answering questions and deliberating, said Lee.

The governmental body can provide information, but if the members begin discussing options or opinions, the act is illegal because the subject was not published on the agenda in advance.

While the public has no right to participate in a meeting, it does have the right to use cameras or recording devices, said Lee.

Closed session

Iowa Code spells out 12 justifiable reasons for closed sessions in Code 21.5, and other justifiable reasons are named in other parts of Iowa Code, said Lee.

If information is confidential, such as student records or trade secrets in a request for proposal, strategies with council on litigation or evaluation of professional competency, a body may go into closed session.

They can also use closed sessions to prevent irreparable injury to a person’s reputation, if that individual requests it.

Final action must occur in open session, Lee said.

Public records

Chapter 22 of Iowa Code governs access to public records.

“What it isn’t is request for information” said Lee. The law governs only records that have been created. No one is required to create a record to fulfill a request.

Public records are created by any government body, not just governmental bodies that conduct meetings. City hall, the police department, create records that must be available to the public.

“Public records also include all records relating to the investment of public funds,” said Lee.

Any content that deals with the government body is public record regardless of where it is kept, said Lee. Public information sent via private email is still a public record and will have to be produced if the record is requested.

“Those records belong to the government,” said Lee.

On the other hand, any personal correspondence through public emails or devices are not public. “Those were still private records,” said Lee. He advises officials to keep separate emails for personal and public business and to use public devices for public business when possible, though he admitted that not everyone has the luxury of keeping two cellphones for that purpose.

Records requests may be restricted by other chapters of Iowa Code, such as those that restrict dissemination of health information or criminal discovery prior to court cases.

Timeline

“So many people … believe that there is a 10- or 20-day deadline,” said Lee. “There is no specific deadline. … It depends on the nature and scope of the request.”

IPIB looks for communication when complaints about public records violations are filed, said Lee. If a request is confusing, officials should ask for clarification. If the request is large and will take a lot of time, officials should make that known.

“That communication buys you more time,” said Lee.

Fees

Fees for records cannot exceed actual cost, said Lee. “But you can charge for the actual hourly rate” of the person retrieving the records.

There’s a difference between a request for records and a request for research, said Lee. If it can be searched with keywords or dates, the records can be retrieved. If someone has to read each record, such as searching title records for coal, that’s research. That request may legally be denied.

Routine requests that take less than 30 minutes to produce, such as minutes of meetings, must be provided at no cost, said Lee.