Strike Comments from Meeting Minutes

[Guest council@ledyardct.org]

Question: Striking Langue from Meeting Comments

 

My This question is not regarding striking language from a Motion. It is pertaining to striking language that was  said during comments.

Here is the scenario:

Person One: Made statements that were said by another individual  who was not in attendance at the meeting.

Person Two: Stated that Person One's statements should be struck from the Minutes because the comments were hearsay and because the other person was not present to verify the conversation. 

 

I have been transcribing minutes for 28 years, and understand the process if minutes need to be corrected. I have not come across this during my tenure, and was hoping you could provide guidance in how this should be handled or recorded in the minutes .

I have attached the actual texts of  comments.  

 

Minutes Text- Strike Language from Minutes-2024-06-12.docx

[Guest council@ledyardct.org]

Please see attachment - Minutes Text- Strike Language from Minutes 

Minutes Text- Strike Language from Minutes-2024-06-12.pdf

[Joshua Katz]

Neither person's comments belong in the minutes, because neither are business.

[Dan Honemann]

Mr. Katz has this right. 

Nothing said in debate should be entered in the minutes except in the extraordinary circumstances when the chair finds it necessary to name an offender for use of objectionable or disorderly words as described in RONR (12th ed.) 61:12.

[Dan Honemann]

As a further caveat to these responses, I should also call attention to 48:3 where we are told that:

"To modify the rules governing what is regularly to be included in the minutes requires adoption of a special rule of order, although a majority vote may direct the inclusion of specific additional information in the minutes of a particular meeting."

[Dan Honemann]

Upon reading the minutes text that was posted, I note that it says that Person Two:

"Called Point of Order, noting the Mayor was not present this evening; and although Person One stated they had conversations with the Mayor; that because the Mayor was not present this evening to either confirm or deny, or talk about what conversations transpired between Mayor and Person One, that it was not fair to have those comments in the record."

Points of order are to be included in the minutes, together with the reasons given by the chair for his or her ruling on them.  I see nothing to indicate that the chair made any response to the point of order that was raised. Was there any response by the chair?

 

[Gary Novosielski]

On 6/17/2024 at 8:06 AM, Guest council@ledyardct.org said:

Question: Striking Langue from Meeting Comments

 

My This question is not regarding striking language from a Motion. It is pertaining to striking language that was  said during comments.

Here is the scenario:

Person One: Made statements that were said by another individual  who was not in attendance at the meeting.

Person Two: Stated that Person One's statements should be struck from the Minutes because the comments were hearsay and because the other person was not present to verify the conversation. 

 

I have been transcribing minutes for 28 years, and understand the process if minutes need to be corrected. I have not come across this during my tenure, and was hoping you could provide guidance in how this should be handled or recorded in the minutes .

I have attached the actual texts of  comments.  

 

Minutes Text- Strike Language from Minutes-2024-06-12.docx 15.7 kB · 3 downloads

None of that belonged in the minutes anyway, if the rules in RONR apply.  Minutes are a record of what was done, not what was said.  Since no motion apparently resulted from this discussion, there's nothing there that needs to be in the minutes.  Once discussion is omitted from the minutes, you will find that there are substantially fewer points to argue about.

The assertion that the words should not be stricken because of Robert's Rules is ridiculous.  If the rules were being followed, there should have been nothing there to strike.

[Joshua Katz]

On 6/17/2024 at 6:15 AM, Dan Honemann said:

Upon reading the minutes text that was posted, I note that it says that Person Two:

 

Ah. I did not review the minutes.

 

[Joshua Katz]

Now having looked at the document provided, I will say, to the degree it matters (it doesn't) that these comments do not even appear to be hearsay to me. And if they were hearsay, I have no idea if the mayor was available. And if the mayor was not unavailable, it still doesn't matter, because meetings are not relevantly like court proceedings and do not have hearsay prohibitions. 

[Rob Elsman]

If all this extraneous stuff had been left out of the minutes, as it should have been, the problem would not have arisen, and the secretary would have had an easier time taking the minutes to boot.