2002 Discussion, Corresp. & Commentary regarding Draft Minutes (by Dave Noyes)
Dave Noyes requested that the board again consider releasing draft minutes at the February 25, 2002, Supervisors meeting. Supervisor Horst stated that he was concerned about potential errors. Dave Noyes stated that now that the township has a full-time manager that can review draft minutes, the potential for major errors should be small and that the benefit to the residents should outweigh this concern. Dave Noyes stated that with the current method of not releasing minutes until after the subsequent supervisors’ meeting, that it’s a month from the time a decision is made until a person who is informed by reading the (approved) minutes can address the board with any comments or concerns. He also stated that Manor Township releases draft minutes.
Supervisor Horst stated that he would (again) like the Solicitors opinion on the matter and the board agreed to ask the Solicitor.
After the meeting Dave Noyes followed-up with:
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Dave Noyes February 26, 2002, letter to Supervisors requesting draft minutes. At the March 11, 2002, meeting the Supervisors discussed the:*
Josele Cleary (Solicitor) February 28, 2002, letter to Supervisors regarding the Right to Know Act. As the board discussed the letter from the solicitor, Dave Noyes skimmed the letter and commented to the board that there were errors in the letter (the board would not allow me to see the letter until the board began their discussion). He stated that the letter was inaccurate in some statements and the tone was needlessly adversarial. The board would not be setting the precedent since Manor Township (as well as some other townships in Pennsylvania including West Vincent Township) currently do release draft minutes. Dave Noyes again reiterated to the board that even if there was no legal requirement to release draft minutes, that it just didn’t seem right to implement decisions before there was a public record of the decisions. Supervisor Fisher commented that anyone can attend the meetings to be informed. Dave Noyes replied that in some cases the residents may not be aware that the subject is up for discussion at the Supervisors’ meeting (particularly when an item is not on the agenda).Additional thoughts on the issue:
I think it was inappropriate for the solicitor to encourage the township in this letter to impose fees for providing information if they were not already doing so. The township currently does charge the legal limit of $0.25 per page but that is not the issue at hand. Her recommendation indicates a bias towards inhibiting public access to information.
Also, the first sentence of the solicitor’s letter states that the request from the manager is because of a resident "who operates a web site". This sentence in light of the tone of the rest of the letter seems to imply that the objective is minimize on-line access of information. The solicitor may not have been informed that at the same meeting that I requested the draft minutes I also proposed an official township web-site, and after details were provided at that same meeting about the county’s offer of web-service to the township, I recommended that the township pursue the county’s offer as opposed to mine. My request for draft minutes is with the assumption that eventually the township will have it’s own web-site and at that point the brownstownpa site will no longer be posting minutes and agendas (and may or may not even exist). The issue is having timely access to information, not who is providing access to the information.