Franklin Lakes June 1, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 9 Council opposes Public Access Meeting Law by Frank J. McMahon The Franklin Lakes Council opposes legislation currently being considered by the state legislature that would revise the state’s Open Public Meetings Law to provide greater public access to meetings of public bodies and information about those meetings. The council recently passed a resolution in opposition to Senate Bill S1351 (A2322), which claims that the legislation includes many new requirements that are unnecessary to protect the public’s interest in open and transparent government, and which would unduly burden municipalities by imposing new procedural requirements that will be time consuming and costly at a time when municipalities are facing unprecedented financial constraints. The resolution also claims that the legislation would impose new procedural requirements on municipalities that are impractical and wasteful and would result in longer meetings and less efficient governance. Some of the proposed “time consuming, costly, impractical, and wasteful” new requirements listed in the resolution include: New requirements pertaining to subcommittees, including notice of subcommittee meetings and the preparation of minutes, which would necessitate additional administrative support for all meetings of subcommittees so that minutes could be prepared; a new requirement that agendas provide a description of all agenda items, including the names of the parties to and approximate dollar amounts of any contracts to be acted upon, which would increase preparation time for agendas; and a new requirement that agendas include estimated starting times for the public portion of the meeting and the portion of the meeting from which the public is to be excluded, though this information would be purely speculative and unreliable. In addition, the legislation includes a new requirement that no public body be permitted to act upon or discuss a matter that is not listed on the agenda except in emergencies. The council’s resolution states that this requirement would be impractical and unnecessarily inhibit the operations of municipal government, as it is often neces- sary for the effective and efficient administration of municipal governmental purposes to discuss or act on matters for which three business days notice may not be possible, and this requirement would effectively prevent discussion of items brought forward by the public. The resolution also claims that the legislation would require that a public body provide for public comment on emergency items that are added to a meeting agenda, adding an unnecessary and time-consuming process to meetings; and a new requirement that a public body provide for public comment before taking final action on any matter at any meeting of at least three minutes per person, which would result in an unworkable series of public comment periods on every action of the governing body, from appointments to resolutions to the approval of minutes, thereby adding substantial time to every meeting of the public body. The resolution also claims that the legislation would require the elimination of attorney/client privilege as a basis for excluding the public from a portion of the (continued on page 25)