Update: Governor Murphy signed this bill into law on March 20, 2020. Many public agencies are already conducting electronic meetings.
The New Jersey Legislature is currently considering numerous bills in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. One bill is A3850, which passed in the Assembly on March 16, 2020, and will likely also pass in the Senate very soon. A3850 amends a public body’s obligations under the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) during a state of emergency. Because this is Sunshine Week and transparency is very important during a crisis, we decided to devote a blog to ...
We have blogged before about a public agency’s requirement under the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) to make its meeting minutes “promptly” available to the public. Our courts have held that minutes must be made available within two weeks after a public meeting or, at a minimum, at least 48-hours prior to the next meeting. Those who regularly file requests for meeting minutes, however, are well aware that overwhelmingly public agencies fail to meet this timeline. Indeed, many, if not most, public agencies are months behind on releasing minutes to the public.
One such agency is ...
Pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), meeting minutes must be “promptly available” to the public. Our courts have held that “promptly available” means within two weeks after the public body’s last meeting or at least 48 hours prior to the next meeting. At any point after that, you are free to submit an OPRA request for the minutes and access must be granted within seven (7) business days. But what about closed/executive session minutes?
OPMA allows a public body to meet in closed session to shield certain information from the public. Among other things, these ...
