Agenda - 02-19-2019 8-a - Minutes

Browse Search

6 1 such as discussions of economic development, personnel, or privileged communications with 2 attorneys, etc., meetings of public bodies must be open to the public. Further, if an official 3 meeting of a public body occurs "full and accurate" minutes must also be kept of the meeting 4 and any actions occurring at the meeting. 5 6 Thus the first question to analyze is what constitutes a public body? For purposes of local 7 government 143-318.10(b) defines public body as "any elected or appointed authority, board, 8 commission, committee, council, or other body of the State, or of one or more counties, cities, 9 school administrative units, constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina, or other 10 political subdivisions or public corporations in the State that (i) is composed of two or more 11 members and (ii) exercises or is authorized to exercise a legislative, policy-making, quasi- 12 judicial, administrative, or advisory function." 13 14 With regard to elected bodies there is no question that when there is a quorum present, unless 15 there is a legal reason for excluding the public, the meeting is a meeting of a public body and 16 must be open. The murkier issue is with the question of ad hoc attendees to a meeting. If the 17 ad hoc attendees merely attend a meeting due to their expertise or position in order to discuss 18 or negotiate issues and were not appointed to do so by any particular entity the meeting likely 19 does not constitute a meeting of a public body. 20 21 There is existing North Carolina case law that provides some insight into what constitutes a 22 public body with regard to ad hoc membership in a meeting group. In DTH Pub. Corp. v. Univ. 23 of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill, 128 N.C. App. 534 (1998) the Court noted that in order to 24 constitute a public body the members of the body must have been appointed by an entity that is 25 authorized to make appointments. So, for example, if the Board of County Commissioners 26 appointed its Chair, Manager, and several other staff to form a committee and hold meetings 27 with the mayor, manager, and staff of a town to discuss a water line and the town likewise took 28 action to appoint those individuals to do so then the meetings could be meetings of a public 29 body. This is not absolute, however, and whether it is a public body would depend on the facts 30 of the individual situation. It's otherwise clear that without that official appointment by an 31 authorized entity the ad hoc group is not a public body. 32 33 What constitutes an official meeting? 143-318.10(d) defines official meeting as a "meeting, 34 assembly, or gathering together at any time or place or the simultaneous communication by 35 conference telephone or other electronic means of a majority of the members of a public 36 body for the purpose of conducting hearings, participating in deliberations, or voting 37 upon or otherwise transacting the public business within the jurisdiction, real or apparent, of 38 the public body. However, a social meeting or other informal assembly or gathering together of 39 the members of a public body does not constitute an official meeting unless called or held to 40 evade the spirit and purposes of this Article." This would cover most meetings of elected or 41 officially appointed groups. 42 43 I will utilize three examples to describe what is and what is not an official meeting of a public 44 body. 45 46 The first example of what are certainly official meetings of public bodies would include any 47 scheduled meeting of the Board of County Commissioners (elected), the Orange County 48 Planning Board (appointed by the Commissioners), the Orange County Board of Equalization 49 and Review (appointed by the Commissioners), etc. Each of these is a scheduled meeting of a 50 body comprised of either elected or appointed officials at which the public body will engage in