OML-AO-3427


April 1, 2002

 

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is based solely upon the facts presented in your correspondence.

Dear

I have received your letter in which you sought my views concerning a response to request for minutes of a meeting of the City of Rensselaer Board of Public Safety.

You wrote that meeting in question was held on February 6, that the Board entered into executive session, and that a statement was given to the news media following the meeting indicating that the Chief of Police had been place on administrative leave and that the decision to do so was "by majority vote of the board." The minutes that you received were "heavily censored" and they do not "show how each member voted."

In this regard, first, §106 of the Open Meetings Law which provides that:

"1. Minutes shall be taken at all open meetings of a public body which shall consist of a record or summary of all motions, proposals, resolutions and any other matter formally voted upon and the vote thereon.

2. Minutes shall be taken at executive sessions of any action that is taken by formal vote which shall consist of a record or summary of the final determination of such action, and the date and vote thereon; provided, however, that such summary need not include any matter which is not required to be made public by the freedom of information law as added by article six of this chapter.

3. Minutes of meetings of all public bodies shall be available to the public in accordance with the provisions of the freedom of information law within two weeks from the date of such meetings except that minutes taken pursuant to subdivision two hereof shall be available to the public within one week from the date of the executive session."

In view of the foregoing, as a general rule, a public body may take action during a properly convened executive session [see Open Meetings Law, §105(1)]. If action is taken during an executive session, minutes reflective of the action, the date and the vote must be recorded in minutes pursuant to §106(2) of the Law. If no action is taken, there is no requirement that minutes of the executive session be prepared.

It is noted that minutes of executive sessions need not include information that may be withheld under the Freedom of Information Law. From my perspective, when a public body makes a final determination during an executive session, that determination will, in most instances, be public. For example, although a discussion to hire or fire a particular employee could clearly be discussed during an executive session [see Open Meetings Law, §105(1)(f), a determination to hire or fire that person would be recorded in minutes and would be available to the public under the Freedom of Information Law. On other hand, if a public body votes to initiate a disciplinary proceeding against a public employee, minutes reflective of its action would not have include reference to or identify the person, for the Freedom of Information Law authorizes an agency to withhold records to the extent that disclosure would result in an unwarranted personal privacy [see Freedom of Information Law, §87(2)(b)].

In this instance, since the matter involved a police officer, I do not believe that details concerning the matter would have been required to have been disclosed. As you may be aware, §50- a of the Civil Rights Law prohibits the disclosure of personnel records pertaining to police officers that are used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion. That being so, the Board in my view was justified in deleting information from the minutes involving the action taken regarding the Chief.

Second, notwithstanding the foregoing, I point out that since the Freedom of Information Law was enacted in 1974, it has imposed what some have characterized as an "open vote" requirement. Although that statute generally pertains to existing records and ordinarily does not require that a record be created or prepared [see Freedom of Information Law, §89(3)], an exception to that rule involves voting by agency members. Specifically, §87(3) of the Freedom of Information Law has long required that:

"Each agency shall maintain:

(a) a record of the final vote of each member in every agency proceeding in which the member votes..."

Stated differently, when a final vote is taken by members of an agency, a record must be prepared that indicates the manner in which each member who voted cast his or her vote. Further, in an Appellate Division decision that was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, it was found that "[t]he use of a secret ballot for voting purposes was improper", and that the Freedom of Information Law requires "open voting and a record of the manner in which each member voted" [Smithson v. Ilion Housing Authority, 130 AD 2d 965, 967 (1987), aff'd 72 NY 2d 1034 (1988)].

To comply with the Freedom of Information Law, I believe that a record must be prepared and maintained indicating how each member cast his or her vote. From my perspective, disclosure of the record of votes of members of public bodies, such as the Board of Public Safety in this instance, represents a means by which the public can know how their representatives asserted their authority. Ordinarily, a record of votes of the members appear in minutes required to be prepared pursuant to §106 of the Open Meetings Law.

 

 

 

I hope that I have been of assistance.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Freeman
Executive Director

RJF:tt

cc: Board of Public Safety