Report on the Sunshine Law

For: Saline County Study Steering Committee

Author: Mark Belwood

Report given: October 8, 1997

Introduction

When I picked up my copy of the Attorney General’s pamphlet regarding the Missouri Sunshine Law (revised August 1995) Cynthia asked me if I would present a report on it. This final report differs from the preliminary report by adding one new paragraph to the end of that report.

This report does not represent an in depth study of the Sunshine Law. This report is based mostly on the first twenty-three pages of the Attorney General’s pamphlet with only scant attention paid to the actual statute itself on pages 24 through 50. This report touches only on those portions of the Sunshine Law that I considered particularly relevant to the Steering Committee of the Saline County Study. I recommend that others read the Attorney General’s pamphlet to come to their own conclusions. Mike Dillon obtained enough copies of the pamphlet so that everyone could have one. Cynthia currently has these in her office.

Intent of the Sunshine Law: "It is the public policy of this state that meetings, records, votes, actions, and deliberations of public governmental bodies be open to the public unless otherwise provided by law." This statement is taken from Section 610.011 of the Sunshine Law.

The Attorney General says that advisory committees, boards and commissions are subject to the Sunshine Law (see top of page 6). This means that the Attorney General considers these entities to be ‘public governmental bodies’ for purposes of the Sunshine Law. Furthermore, the Attorney General says that subcommittees of public governmental bodies are also subject to the Sunshine Law (see top of page 6). Therefore the Steering Committee—and any subcommittees that may be formed from it—are subject to the Sunshine Law.

A ‘public meeting’ is any meeting of a public governmental body where public business is discussed, decided or public policy is formulated. ‘Public business’ is defined as all matters that relate in any way to the performance of the public governmental body’s functions or the conduct of its business (see page 24). Meetings held via communication equipment where members are not physically present in one location can be considered public meetings. Informal gatherings of members of a public governmental body for ministerial or social purposes—when there is no intent to avoid the purposes of the Sunshine Law—are not considered public meetings. (See pages 7 and 25 & 26.)

Bodies subject to the Sunshine Law are required to give 24-hour notice of the time, date and place of each meeting and its tentative agenda in a manner reasonably calculated to inform the public of the matters to be discussed. The notice must be posted prominently in the principal office of the body holding the meeting or, if there is no such office, in the building where the meeting will be held. (See top of page 8.) Copies of the notice must be made available upon request to representatives of the news media. If exceptional circumstances prevent 24-hour prior notice or prevent the meeting from being held at a reasonably convenient time or in a place reasonably accessible to the public, the reasons should be stated in the minutes. Note that every reasonable effort is to be made to grant special access to the meeting to handicapped or disabled persons (see page 27). A sample meeting notice form is given on page 21.

In certain circumstances meetings can be closed to the public, but public notice of the meeting must still be given. These exceptional circumstances that allow meetings to be closed are listed on pages 4 and 5. None of these circumstances is likely to apply to any of the meetings of the Steering Committee.

Bodies subject to the Sunshine Law are required to take minutes of their meetings (see page 14 and page 28). The minutes shall include the date, time, place, members present, members absent and a record of any votes taken. If a roll call vote is taken, the minutes shall record each member’s vote. As mentioned earlier, the minutes should also reflect the reasons why a meeting was held on less then a 24-hour notice or at a time or place that was not reasonably convenient and accessible to the public.

Bodies subject to the Sunshine Law are required to appoint a custodian for their records. A sample resolution for doing so is given on page 20.

Section 610.029 of the Sunshine Law states: "A public governmental body is encouraged to make information available to useable electronic formats to the greatest extent feasible."