OPEN SOURCE
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MANSFIELD — You don’t have to clear your schedule and sit in the front row of a public meeting to keep tabs on your elected officials.
Anyone has the right to know what a public governing body is discussing and its voting actions.
Laws like Ohio Open Meetings Act protect residents’ right to attend public meetings and access both agendas (a record of what is set to be discussed at a meeting) and minutes (a record of what happened a meeting) of those meetings.
Recently, a reader asked why minutes from last month’s Mansfield City Schools board meeting weren’t yet posted online.
The board met in a special session on June 30 and July 14 and in regular session on July 21.
Ohio law requires school boards to read and approve previous meeting minutes at each regular meeting, making any corrections needed.
The Open Meetings Act doesn’t specify a timeframe for when minutes have to be available, only that they “must be promptly prepared, filed and made available for public inspection.”
Some school districts wait until minutes have been approved by the board before posting them online. Others post them sooner.
The board did not vote to approve minutes at its last regular meeting. Treasurer Tammy Hamilla told Richland Source the board would vote on prior minutes at an upcoming meeting.
The board cancelled its regular meeting on Aug. 4. Its next regular meeting is scheduled for Aug. 18.
If you want to know what your school board is voting on before it happens, look for board meeting agendas on your school district’s website.
What counts as a public meeting?
Ohio law requires public officials to take official action and conduct all deliberations on official business in open, public meetings.
This rule is applies to a laundry list of public bodies. A few of them include city and village councils, school boards, the board of county commissioners, township trustees and the state Senate and House of Representatives.
Lesser-known public bodies include county boards of developmental disabilities, land bank boards, village or city planning commissions, county mental health boards, public health department boards and public library boards.
If an entity is supported with your tax dollars and consists of elected officials, there’s a good chance its meetings are public.
The law defines a meeting as any prearranged discussion of public business by a public body by a majority of its members.
There are some topics that public bodies are allowed to discuss in private (an executive session). Ohio law limits which topics can be discussed.
