(c) Minutes of all open sessions shall be created and approved in a timely manner. The minutes of an open session, if they exist and whether approved or in draft form, shall be made available upon request by any person within 10 days.
The wording is designed to be accommodating to any board, but not restrictive to a citizens request. At any time one would like to have a copy of the any meeting minutes, the minutes must be supplied within ten days of that request, not the date of the meeting, but the date of the request. This is an accommodation, but not a restriction.
For those that are immensely interested in obtaining the minutes of any meeting you will not have to wait 120 days. For the rest of us that are just interested in how well government works, and how to make it function smoother, and better, then we would like to know why it would take so long for meeting minutes to be released, and then why would they all be released at once? Were they ready all at the same time? Then that would tell us they were not worked on until fairly recently. And, why would minutes not be released as each set of meeting minutes was completed, and approved? There are citizens in this town that look forward to reviewing the minutes, and watch elected bodies with great interest. Is this fair to the citizens of Sturbridge to make them wait so long for meeting minutes from April and May?
I really don't think that the BOS can supply an answer to that, otherwise they would have responded by now. Let's see if the next batch of minutes is released somewhat sooner, and more appropriately, after each meeting. I think they might be.
Housework is always a drag, but it has to be done before taking on work outside the home, otherwise one just gets all bogged down, and may end up being 120 days late in some things.
Speculation, rumors, and manipulation of the facts abound when there are no actual minutes to read.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
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