Illegal?

[Guest Planning Board Member]

HI Im on a planning board in a village in NC.  We are in process of making recommendations to Council to make changes to our Master Plan. I want some changes that the Mayor and hence his appointed PB Chair do not want.  Thats the back story.

So, I made a motion to recommend changes to Mater Plan page 1, 3 and 5, and 7... The motion passed unanimously.

I verified that the clerk recorded it properly and she had it on audio and in her steno pad verbatim. All was good.

At the following months meeting however,  we had to vote to  "motion to accept the minutes from last month"...to my surprise, the MOTION I MADE AND THAT WAS PASSED WAS REWRITTEN AND SUBSTANTIALLY AND MATERIALLY CHANGED!. Page 3 and 5 were removed and more! It was NOT my motion.

The recording clerk said "she was instructed to change it" but would not say by whom.  When the Chairman was confronted he said he instructed her because it was unclear what the wording actually was. Yeah right. I have the audio and a copy of heer steno notes.

Eventually, he acquiesced and returned the correct wording.  I waited a full month to see if the Mayor or the PB Chair would say or do anything, and they did not.  

I wrote a formal letter to the Mayor and Vice Mayor and cc'd to the Planning Chair instructing them that this kind of behavior would put the Village in legal jeopardy and they need to make sure it never happens again.  

I got a cryptic 1 line email from the Mayor that it was "addressed".

They are very angry....not at PB Chair, but at me.  They are attempting to vote me off the island! Off the PB.  

ANy suggestions of what I should say to them, is it illegal? Changing the wording of a passed motion after the vote?  

Robert's never addressed THAT, I bet!  Im sure it is illegal... any suggestions?

[Bruce Lages]

Whether it is illegal or not is beyond the scope of this forum. You could speak to your town attorney as to which, if any, laws or ordinances apply.

Under RONR, each assembly approves its own minutes, and when the minutes are presented to the assembly for approval, corrections may be proposed if the minutes do not accurately reflect what happened at the meeting in question. If there is disagreement on any proposed corrections the matter is decided by majority vote. No one individual, including the chair, has the authority to make changes on his or her own, but any one individual can certainly propose corrections. Before the minutes are presented to the assembly, they are under control of the secretary, who can choose whether or not to make any corrections suggested by other members while the minutes are still in draft form.

[Planning Board Member]

4 minutes ago, Bruce Lages said:

Whether it is illegal or not is beyond the scope of this forum. You could speak to your town attorney as to which, if any, laws or ordinances apply.

Under RONR, each assembly approves its own minutes, and when the minutes are presented to the assembly for approval, corrections may be proposed if the minutes do not accurately reflect what happened at the meeting in question. If there is disagreement on any proposed corrections the matter is decided by majority vote. No one individual, including the chair, has the authority to make changes on his or her own, but any one individual can certainly propose corrections. Before the minutes are presented to the assembly, they are under control of the secretary, who can choose whether or not to make any corrections suggested by other members while the minutes are still in draft form.

Thanks. Im still flabbergasted that a Chair would instruct the clerk to make material changes...

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

26 minutes ago, Guest Planning Board Member said:

ANy suggestions of what I should say to them, is it illegal?

Yeah, I would say "I'm outta here, you corrupt SOBs" but I can't find a page reference in RONR for that. 😏 Then I would run for Mayor.

Back in RONRland, you can move at any future board meeting to correct the minutes to properly reflect your motion. This is a motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted and can be renewed at every session if defeated.

[Planning Board Member]

Yeah. Thanks . I needed to hear that. Thats what I thought too....

 

[Joshua Katz]

1 hour ago, Guest Planning Board Member said:

At the following months meeting however,  we had to vote to  "motion to accept the minutes from last month"...to my surprise, the MOTION I MADE AND THAT WAS PASSED WAS REWRITTEN AND SUBSTANTIALLY AND MATERIALLY CHANGED!. Page 3 and 5 were removed and more! It was NOT my motion.

 

Well, on a side note, a vote on approval of the minutes is not the proper procedure.  Rather, the chair should ask for changes, and once all changes are dealt with, declare the minutes (sigh) approved.

But, back on point - then what happened?  The commission received inaccurate minutes.  We're not told, though, what was done about it.  What should have been done, for future reference (sigh) is that you should move to amend the minutes so that they read correctly.

None of the out of meeting actions described are, so far as RONR is concerned, the right way to deal with the problem.  

By the way, are these proper, RONR-style, minutes, or more similar to a transcript?

57 minutes ago, Planning Board Member said:

Thanks. Im still flabbergasted that a Chair would instruct the clerk to make material changes...

This is not quite the right thing to be flabbergasted about.  Minutes, before being approved, are just notes - in particular, the Secretary's notes.  The Secretary doesn't necessarily need to provide them to anyone before the meeting.  If they are presented to someone, the Secretary is free to include, or not, any suggestions.  However, in this case, we're told they came from the "recording clerk."  If this is similar to the municipality where I was on Planning, that would be an employee, who is subject to instruction from the chair between meetings (and instructions from the committee more generally).  But none of that is the point, because what matters is what the commission approves.

[Planning Board Member]

The outcome was I got the motion as passed, back in play and the minutes were approved. But they almost slipped a fast one on us. Just never saw such deceit on a board such as this.  Thanks all for your thoughts

[Joshua Katz]

4 hours ago, Planning Board Member said:

The outcome was I got the motion as passed, back in play and the minutes were approved. But they almost slipped a fast one on us. Just never saw such deceit on a board such as this.  Thanks all for your thoughts

Well, good.  We can't answer legal questions here, but in my opinion all went fine, in the end, from a parliamentary standpoint.  Incidentally, while someone may or may not have been trying to pull a fast one (we've only heard your side, after all), I don't think they chose a very good way to do so, or, at least, they chose one that is easily thwarted so long as members are doing what they're supposed to do - namely, paying attention to inaccuracies in the minutes.  

From a parliamentary standpoint (as opposed to legal), they chose a poor means for a second reason: modifying the minutes doesn't actually change history, just how history is recorded.  That is, the minutes are evidence as to what happened, but if (to use a more extreme example) they had simply had the minutes say "the motion was not adopted," it would still have been adopted, and you would still be able to insist on enforcing it as a point of order, you'd just have a tougher argument (and you might want to fight on the minutes first).  However, I realize that in this instance, there is legal significance to the minutes (which, in many states, extends to the minutes needing to be significantly different than they would be under RONR).