Public Records Free Directory Blog

Are you curious about how decisions are made and what occurs while your government officials are meeting. Thanks to the open meetings laws you don’t have to just wonder about the meetings, you actually have direct access to them. All states have created some policy whereby meetings involving public matters are open to the public. These are usually called either an Open Meetings Act or an Open Meetings Law. These laws were created to prevent secrecy in matters that affect us.

One of the most important factors about the open meetings laws is that they generally apply only to meetings where the decisions being made affect the public and the decision is being made by some collegial decision making body. However, in some states, the reach of the open meetings law may extend to entities that only have policy making authority if their policy in some way affects the general public, such as certain adivsory committees.

Furthermore, depending on the state’s open record law, private entities may also be subject to the open records laws if the public’s interests are at the core. Examples can include school boards, hospital boards, non-profit organizations, tax commissions, and civil rights commissions. If these private entities meet specfic requirements under their state’s open records laws, such as public funding and decisions affecting the public, then citizens may have the right to attend these meetings. For example, in Florida, private non-profit corporations operating hospitals leased from a public hospital district are subject to the requirements of the open records law.

Thankfully, open records laws have a provision requiring that the public meetings are held at a time and place that is convenienct to the public. However, if there is an important meeting that you are unable to attend, you may be able to actually listen to the recording, depending on the laws of the state. In a ruling made this year, Pennyslvania decided that taped records of public meetings are in fact public records. While meetings are often taped to help secretaries and assistants dictate official minutes, they have now been deemed public records in that state. As such, if you are unable to attend an open meeting, at least in Pennyslvania, if you make a timely request to the appropriate office, you should be granted access to these records. It is important to note that these tapes are not usually saved for long, as their intial purpose was to to be used for minutes, so if you do not make a quick request, the tapes may already be destroyed. There is no set time frame as to how long the tapes must be kept, and the individual govenrement agenices can set their own policies, so the time you have to make a request and receive the tapes will likely vary. In cases where you cannot visit the meetings or access the tapes, you can always make a public records request for the meeting minutes.

These open records laws vary by state, and in some cases, local governments may even have their own open records laws with different requirements. There are many exceptions and other considerations written into these laws. Most states provide information on their public records and open meetings laws on their websites. You can find a directory by state of government sites as well as other public records resources at The Free Public Records Directory.