Matt Ready

Speaker 45:         So you’re all comfortable with that? Yeah. Okay. A formal legal opinion on the recording of board meetings. Is this necessary?

Matt Ready:         Well we have, we had a couple incidents regarding a commissioner recording a meeting. And in retrospect I think, I don’t think we handled it correctly. The question should have been, is it in order out of order for a commissioner to record the meeting on some device, and that should have been just a ruling from the board chair and then the issue would be done.

Speaker 45:         But since they are recorded now is it didn’t moot point.

Speaker 46:         Unless… Next time a commissioner decides to record a meeting, just-

Speaker 43:         Well you’re talking about an individual commissioner taking out a recorder. [crosstalk 00:09:48].

Speaker 44:         Onsite or offsite?

Speaker 46:         We had-

Speaker 48:         Offsite.

Speaker 46:         There was onsite and offsite incidents. There were two, the first one that I recorded and then the one I recorded [inaudible 04:42:00].

Speaker 45:         Does anybody have an issue if Matt records a meeting with his own personal device?

Speaker 48:         Yes, and the MRSC agrees with us.

Speaker 46:         So we just need a ruling from the chair. You say we going to do Robert’s rules of order. Either it’s in order or it’s out of order.

Speaker 45:         But a legal opinion is something different than a ruling.

Speaker 46:         Well, I would suggest the chair has confidence they’re making a legally sound ruling because I think there’s legal consequences if you rule incorrectly.

Speaker 47:         We Looked at this and there’s no, you can’t stop anybody, from Matt, or a commissioner, as a member of the public can report any public meeting. But the commissioner also is a public official participating in an open public meeting and that recording is, needs to become part of the open public record.

Speaker 48:         That means it has to be archived under certain regulations and assessable.

Speaker 47:         Yeah. So mechanics of that, that council just basically says if you can avoid all of that, you should, you know, that’s why your record your own on your own equipment. But I think the question comes up, but our policy says just regular meetings, it doesn’t say special meetings. So when we’re in Shalan having a meeting when we don’t have all that apparatus there, what happens if a commissioner wants to record?

Speaker 43:         Or if we had a special meeting with a legislator.

Speaker 47:         Yeah. And so you’re saying that if Jill, if a chair says you’re out of order-

Speaker 46:         I’m saying, yeah-

Speaker 47:         [inaudible 04:43:49] would be cool with that?

Speaker 46:         No no, I’m saying the same thing. You just then you stand by. Then things would happen.

Speaker 47:         What does that mean?

Speaker 46:         I mean if, it’s just like if there was someone in the audience and like a chair said you’re out of order for recording the meeting, then, then you have to decide-

Speaker 48:         They’re not. They have a legal right to do that.

Speaker 46:         I agree. So does a commissioner.

Speaker 48:         You do have a legal right but-

Speaker 46:         So you can tell, if you have a problem with it. If any board member has a problem with something someone else is doing in the meeting, they can say, I think that’s out of order and the chair is to rule. Is it out of order or not? And then if you say it’s out of order, then the board member can either obey the order or not.

Speaker 44:         Why would you want to go through all that when you know the reason. Why would you want to have the board chair see that when you understand?

Speaker 45:         Well I would suggest that-

Speaker 46:         Because I wouldn’t turn off the recorder. The board ruled out of order.

Speaker 48:         So he just wants to get it on recording.

Speaker 46:         Because if something’s out of order and you have the right to remove the person from the room. I mean, if someone is violating the rules of a meeting in a private property, they’re out of order, you can kick them out.

Speaker 45:         So my suggestion to the board chair is don’t rule that it’s out of order. I would say don’t, don’t go there. That would, that would create a situation. And if an individual chooses to record the, the meeting then efforts should be made to turn it into a public archive. Right?

Speaker 44:         Then you would have to, would you have to then submit your recording to us?

Speaker 46:         I mean don’t have to.

Speaker 44:         So that we can archive it.

Speaker 47:         Yeah you would.

Speaker 46:         I mean, but-

Speaker 47:         You would. Because it would be or, or, or-

Speaker 44:         It’s an official-

Speaker 47:         Or put the organization in jeopardy, legal jeopardy and that, that is, that is the, the craziness of this and I, and frankly I don’t know why we need to revisit this. And at a time when we’re talking about eliminating dysfunction from, from governance. This is, yeah, you have the right you do but it, but it creates complications for the, the organization you are, you are sworn to abide and comply with. So I don’t get this Matt, but, but you’re right. No one can stop you if, if that’s, if that’s what you, and I don’t really know where you’re going with this. You want us to try to stop you?

Speaker 45:         I think he does. Is that what you’re suggesting?

Speaker 47:         For what purpose? Other than-

Speaker 46:         I’m pointing out, we handled those situations incorrectly. It should’ve been said-

Speaker 44:         How many years ago was this? [inaudible 04:46:39].

Speaker 46:         I mean one of us could want to record a meeting. I just want to avoid this an explosive conflict.

Speaker 44:         You’re bringing it up.

Speaker 47:         It is-

Speaker 44:         You started it.

Speaker 47:         It’s, it’s not, it’s not about that recording. It’s, it’s about the whole point of this. I think this, this session that is, that is, that is something that I don’t, I’ve said what I needed to say about it.

Speaker 45:         So I think if, if a member of this public body should choose to record something, you have an obligation to try to get to be part of the public record or the organization is at risk because there was a member of the organization who recorded something and is not making it available to the public. because if there was a recording made, it needs to be made available to the public. Would you agree?

Speaker 46:         Of course. I mean that’s, that’s, that’s, and that’s what was done in each of the prior recordings they were given to the hospital.

Speaker 45:         Okay, good. So we’re good.

Speaker 44:         So did you make copies of them?

Speaker 46:         Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 48:         So that would be held I think was six or seven years.

Speaker 44:         Why? Why would you make a copy of a meeting that’s being recorded?

Speaker 45:         He, no, he reported it himself.

Speaker 48:         He did.

Speaker 45:         And then he made a copy and he gave it to-

Speaker 47:         Yeah. But I think, and this is where, John would be helpful, because I think if he has a copy of this other public meeting, even though he made it available, then that still is open to public scrutiny access. And if you do it on your phone and then your phone has opened up public access and everything on your phone now becomes public-

Speaker 48:         What? Everything on his phone is open to public?

Speaker 47:         If he made the recording on his phone.

Speaker 44:         That’s true.

Speaker 43:         And there’s a public record request for his phone, his recording.

Speaker 47:         It’s just a legal can of worms that can easily be avoided. And I mean that’s, that’s Brad Burt technical version of this.

Speaker 45:         There’s already a recording being made.

Speaker 47:         Mind-boggling that you would choose not to.

Speaker 46:         I, I believe what we say in these meetings is important. The meetings that I recorded, you were, we were not recording them.

Speaker 45:         So now we are.

Speaker 46:         So it was the only way. And there were very huge conflicts during those meetings over that issue. So I just think we should clarify if that situation ever happens again. Let’s not have that happen. Let’s know what is going to happen. It’s either in order or it’s out of order.

Speaker 48:         But you also, if I may say so, Eric said earlier on, whether it was in order or out of order, you were going to ignore the order-

Speaker 46:         Right. Because it’s in order. It is in order. You cannot tell someone to turn something off.

Speaker 47:         I think you’re playing semantic games.

Speaker 43:         Could I ask a question Matt? So what, what would you recommend be written in here to clarify that going forward?

Speaker 46:         I just recommend that this board knows what it’s going to do with the situation happens again because it’s not, we made a mistake, we might’ve violated a statute [inaudible 04:50:05] by trying to tell someone to turn off the recorder that I think that might’ve been a statute violation and we shouldn’t do that. We should know. Okay. We don’t like it if someone’s recording but can’t, I shouldn’t like harass them about it or it’s just like it’s either in order out of order.

Speaker 44:         But you could’ve made a copy of the, of the recording.

Speaker 47:         So so, so here, here’s the issue is this whole thing was instigated by showing up at a meeting and turning on your recorder.

Speaker 46:         What whole thing?

Speaker 47:         Whether we record the meetings or not because we weren’t, we did audio record them before that. And so we call council and say, what do we do here? It wasn’t really the will of the interest of the board to audio tape [inaudible 00:18:50]. We, that, that was not the norm with the work that we did when we contacted all the [inaudible 04:50:59] districts. But you said, I’m going to record them anyway and so and forced our hand. So then we put a policy together that said we would record and with legal council’s advice, here’s how you do that. So you can make sure that that audio record is a can that doesn’t face the scrutiny of, of some members of our community who from time to time look at the meta question of Alyssa about the authenticity of the recordings and, and here’s the process, here’s the mechanics, here is the machinery. And we’ll do that for regular meetings knowing that when three commissioners are meeting a legislator’s office, that’s a special meeting. And, and now we just do that.

Speaker 47:         What you’re talking about is when we have special meetings and sometimes those special meetings include other representatives of boards that don’t audio record their meetings. And sometimes those special meetings are, you know, in, in places where may or may not be conducive to recording. And, and I think you’re, you’re, you’re asking us to react to that when certainly, it’s my preference that we follow the policy which records regular meetings. We don’t, we don’t, and then therefore commissioners don’t, record on their own prior special meetings and we just avoid all of this. I think the question or the, the why of the road when you do this. I think this is actually what happened, is that we just decided not to meet. That you commissioner colleagues were so uncomfortable with that and probably had less to do with the issue or to do with maybe other stuff around the issue that we won’t meet them. And that just seems silly to me.

Speaker 46:         I don’t see how do you want them… I would not take a position that wields power if there’s people who are not accountable for what they say in the room and I do not feel, you know, talk about trust. You know what increases trust is having an account, but what people said because if you can’t, we have so much trouble trusting each other on a basic level. I think we trust each other to like remember accurately a three hour conversation. It’s insane. It’s like it’s completely absurd that this board could function without an accurate record of what we say. I mean I realized that after two months on the board, all I care about is that we have efficient meetings when we talk about something and we agree to it at the next meeting we remember we agreed to it and we don’t have to revisit the issue.

Speaker 46:         I mean that’s all recording does for him. I don’t know why we don’t record offsite meetings except for the ones that other people would want to. If it prevents us from meeting with legislators, that’s totally fine. We’re not going to, and that’s why, that’s why I never insisted that we record everything because then we wouldn’t be able to serve our community, wouldn’t be able to meet with some people.

Speaker 48:         And that’s the case with the, when we were meeting with, with other organizations that don’t record theirs, are not comfortable with that. It’s the same thing.

Speaker 46:         And I never, I never insisted we record those. Some people might, but-

Speaker 45:         So I think we should move on from this issue. I don’t think, I think it’s the general opinion that there isn’t a need for a formal legal opinion. And as your governance consultant, my recommendation is don’t rule that out of order if it should come up because it would not be proper.

Speaker 45:         Should we take a 10 minute break and then come back? We do have time in the afternoon, so we’re off our agenda, but it’s okay. We’ll still get where we need to go.

Speaker 44:         Okay.

Speaker 45:         So we’ll reconvene.