Springfield School Board — May 5, 2026

0:26 So I'd like to call this May 5th, 2026 meeting of the Springfield Board of Education to order. It is 5:02. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And Director Langworthy, if you'd be so kind as to read the land acknowledgement.

1:42 We acknowledge that our district is situated in the traditional homeland of the Kalapuya people, specifically the community that was known as Chifen, the area that we now call Springfield. Kalapuya people who have lived in this region since time immemorial, were illegally disposed of their land and forcibly removed to what are now the Grand Ronde and Siletz reservations over several years, but most notably in treaties between 1851 and 1855. The Kalapuya are now members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, and members of the Kalapuya still live, work, study, and thrive in this area and continue to make important contributions here

2:30 in Springfield, across the land we now refer to as Oregon, and around the globe. This information is shared out of a responsibility to prevent erasure of Native culture, heritage, and people to ensure a quality contemporary education for future generations. Thank you. Do we have any online participants? No. One. No, this is us. So none specifically. Well, welcome to everybody here and thanks, board members and for everyone who

3:17 made this happen as a special meeting on this Tuesday evening, Cinco de Mayo. So, welcome to OGEC, Oregon Government Ethics Commission. We've been looking forward to this training for a long time and so glad you could make it down. So I'll let you introduce yourself and then we'll go around and introduce ourselves. Thank you. This microphone sounds like it's working. Thank you so much for hosting me this evening. My name is Ruth Sylvester, and I'm a trainer at the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, OGEC for short. Thank you. I'm Jonathan Light. I'm board chair of the Springfield Board of Education, and starting over there.

4:11 Amber Langworthy, vice chair. It's green, so... Oh, there it's working. Thank you. And absent this evening is our fifth board member, Nicole DeGraff. So again, welcome, and the show is yours. Thank you. You may not have to push it down, which will make it easier for you. It's green. If it's, yeah. Excellent. All right. We're ready to go. So, want to make sure that you are able to see what I

4:58 see. Excellent. Thank you. So, I'm a trainer at the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, and so my job is to assist public officials to understand and comply with the provisions of Oregon's Public Meetings Law. And education is one of our highest priorities at the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. So, I do have a few reminders for everyone getting started tonight. This training is being presented during a public meeting, and viewing a recording of this training

5:46 does not meet the training requirement in Public Meetings Law. The people who are meeting the training requirement in Public Meetings Law are the board members who are individually registered with me and who will be polling anonymously, participating, showing their participation in that way during the live training tonight. Um-Also, just a couple of additional reminders. The material that is part of this training tonight is intended to explain the requirements of Oregon's Public Meetings Law and to provide examples of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission's interpretation of those requirements. But the information in this training session is not a

6:33 substitute for reviewing the statutes and rules on your own if you find yourself in a situation where Public Meetings Law applies. It's still your responsibility to review those statutes and rules. And while the requirements that I'm explaining tonight are providing that interpretation of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, this material is in the Ethics Commission's jurisdiction, and so it is up to them and their authority to make determinations about those requirements. Also, I am an educator, and I am an educator, and I am not an attorney. The information in this training is not legal advice, and it's not designed as a substitute for legal advice.

7:21 I also would acknowledge that there may be other laws and regulations that are not in the jurisdiction of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, or OGEIC for short, that may regulate your governing body's activities. And often in those situations, the person with the most familiarity of those other laws and regulations will be the governing body's legal counsel, and that is a powerful resource for you. Now, I mentioned we do use that acronym, OGEIC for short, to describe the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. And OGEIC is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00. We're happy to hear from you if you have more questions about material that's in OGEIC jurisdiction. And an additional note about that jurisdiction,

8:10 the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, that is OGEIC, was created to enforce Oregon laws around transparency in government. And OGEIC has a governing body made of nine volunteer members, and those nine volunteers are appointed by the governor and the legislative assembly, and they are confirmed by a vote of the Oregon Senate. Now, the commission, along with their staff of 15 people, including me, they are collectively charged to enforce three areas of law in their jurisdiction. And the first jurisdiction is Oregon Government Ethics Law. That is a special law because it was enacted by the voters of Oregon in 1974 as a safeguard for the public trust. It's found in Chapter 244 in the Oregon Revised

8:56 Statutes, and it prohibits public officials from using their offices or positions for financial gain or avoiding financial detriment. Also, it requires public disclosure of economic conflicts of interest. Now, the commission also has jurisdiction over certain provisions of lobby law in Chapter 171, specifically provisions enforcing state laws requiring lobbyists and the entities they represent to register and report their expenditures. So again, that financial transparency. And now what I'm here to talk about tonight is Public Meetings Law, and Public Meetings Law has been a law in Oregon even longer than Government Ethics Law. It was enacted in 1973. Now, in the 1990s, OGEIC received jurisdiction

9:42 over just the executive session provisions of Public Meetings Law. Then in 2023, that jurisdiction expanded to include all the provisions of Public Meetings Law. And now that Public Meetings Law is part of OGEIC jurisdiction, we're tasked with providing advice and trainings on how the laws apply. And for the training today, my goals for you are that you will become more familiar with Public Meetings Law. And I recognize Public Meetings Law is complex. This training provides you with an overview of the provisions, and I want to make sure you are more familiar with resources that are available to figure out if a governing body is following the provisions of the Public Meetings Law. And for board members who are

10:31 here hosting me tonight, I want to make sure you get credit for being here and meeting the training requirement in Public Meetings Law. But this does not exempt you from making sure you stay up to date with any changes in the law and any changes that may be impacting your governing body and your public body. But in order to receive your certificate of completion, I do need you to be participating with me in the poll questions tonight, and to be here for the entire live training. You will not receive a certificate if you are viewing a recording of this training. Now, just a note about questions. I have about two and a half hours of material for you this evening, and I

11:17 respect your time. I can't provide advice or guidance on specific situations during the training, but I do have time to pause to answer general questions, and I have slides to pause where we can address those. The first opportunity is going to come after the definition section, and so I would just ask that you hold your questions until that first slide after definitions for questions, and then for the pauses afterwards to address questions that you may have. But if you have a specific question about how the law applies to your specific situation, please reach out to our agency. It's best to send us an email at [email protected].

12:03 That way, someone from our staff can provide you with additional advice and guidance about your particular situation.Now, to get started tonight, I do have a question for board members. And I ask this question at the beginning of every training. Why do you think governing bodies in Oregon hold meetings in public? Because this is the public's business we're doing, so that they need to be aware of decisions we make and why. Absolutely. So doing the public business, making sure they're informed.

12:48 The most common answers I get to this question are transparency and accountability, and then finally, because it's the law. So everything that you've shared, doing the public business, making sure the public is informed, that's what we're here to talk about today. And to get started, I am going to be showing some polling questions. And everyone should have a small clicker there. Those are your anonymous clickers for the polling. This poll has eight questions. So we're going to start with... This is our first question, so this is choose one answer.

13:34 Who is held accountable for Public Meetings Law violation complaints filed with OGEC? Options are A, staff, B, governing body members, C, staff and governing body members. Excellent. Thank you. And our second question, choose one answer for this one as well. The governing body uses a Google document to do collaborative work outside of meetings. Members can edit this at any time. Is this a violation of Public Meetings Law?

14:21 Our options are A, yes, this is an example of serial communication, and a quorum has access to contribute, edit, and review what has been shared outside a meeting. Option B, no, because while all the members can edit the document, the content will be discussed at a future public meeting. Option C, no, because in addition to the governing body members, the public also has access to this document.

15:11 And choose one answer for this one as well. What accommodations are you required to give under Public Meetings Law? Is it A, meet in an accessible location, B, meet in an accessible location and provide an interpreter if requested no matter what, C, meet in an accessible location and make a good faith effort to provide an interpreter if requested at least 48 hours before the meeting, or option D, nothing is required. And choose one answer for this one. When do meeting notices need to be posted? Options are A, within a reasonable amount of time for all meetings,

15:56 B, within a reasonable amount of time for regular meetings, 24 hours before special meetings, and as much time as possible for emergency meetings, option C, at least 48 hours before regular meetings, 24 hours before special meetings, and as much time as possible for emergency meetings. All right. Now, for this one, you will choose all that apply. Before entering executive session to evaluate performance, discipline or dismiss, or to hear complaints or charges against an individual, a written notice must be given to the affected individual. What are the requirements of that written notice? So choose all that apply here. Our options are A,

16:43 sent at least 24 hours in advance, B, identifies the governing body, C, gives them the option to have an attorney present, D, tells them the reason for convening an executive session, E, provides how to request an open session, F, identifies the date, time, and location of the meeting, G, sent by official mail. Your public body has received a Public Meetings Law grievance. What is the public body required to do? For this one, choose one answer. Options are A, the public body is not required to do anything, it is the

17:30 governing body's responsibility, B, the public body needs to respond to the grievance within 21 days, C, the public body needs to respond to the grievance within 21 days and send a copy to OGEC. Now I just have two more questions for you. The next one coming up is going to be choose all that apply. What resources are available to analyze if a governing body follows the provisions of Public Meetings Law?Options are A, OGEC, B, the Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual,

18:17 C, your governing body's counsel, D, your association, whether that's OSBA or another support association, or E, none, you are on your own. And now our last question, how confident do you feel in your knowledge of following public meetings law? These are anonymous, and I never see what folks answer to this, but our options are A, very confident, B, confident, C, somewhat confident, D, not confident, but I know where to go when I have questions, or E, not confident at all. Thank you for polling with me on those questions. Now, before I address resources and definitions, I am going to talk a little bit more about responsibilities

19:05 in public meetings law, and to address who is responsible for ensuring that all of public meetings law is being followed. That is governing body members. Governing body members are individually held accountable by OGEC, and governing body members are responsible for ensuring that public meetings law is followed. That also means that when OGEC receives complaints about possible public meetings law violations, cases would be opened on each member of the governing body. And this is regardless of whether or not the governing body has staff support on any tasks. Public meetings law cases would not be opened on staff who support the governing body with administrative

19:51 tasks. And governing body members are responsible for their actions and their non-actions. That means that it's important as a governing body member to speak up if you see something is not being done correctly. Speak up to your governing body and your public body to make sure that it's corrected, because just saying you didn't know something was a violation or you didn't see that meeting notice does not mean you're not responsible. And specifically, I will go into detail about actions and non-actions when we address executive session provisions. So I'll be using that language again when we talk about the executive session provisions later on tonight. And as I mentioned, if the Oregon Government Ethics Commission were to receive a public meetings law

20:38 complaint, cases are opened on each individual governing body member, and if a governing body member were to be found in violation, any penalty that's issued is the responsibility of that individual governing body member, and those fines cannot be paid with public monies. So in the example of a governing body whose staff support prepares a meeting notice, and that staff person does not post the meeting notice in the timeframe that's required by public meetings law, and OGEC were to receive a properly filed complaint, that is where governing body members would come before the ethics commission, not that staff member. So what are the topics that I'm going to address in public meetings law tonight?

21:24 Governing body members are responsible for ensuring public meetings law is being followed. So I'm covering all the topics in public meetings law, including your resources and key statutory definitions. Then we'll talk more about public attendance and meeting locations. Also accommodations and accessibility for public meetings and meeting notices, and also recordings and minutes for public meetings, and then we'll take a very short break. After that short break, we have the executive session provisions and the grievance process. Finally, the enforcement of public meetings law and the training requirement, so what the law says about that training requirement, and more details for you about receiving your certificate after the training.

22:09 As I mentioned earlier, there may be other laws and regulations that are not part of public meetings law and are outside of OGEC jurisdiction that may regulate some aspects of your public meetings. Those could be other state laws and rules, your governing body's bylaws, or your public body's policies. And in each of those situations, the person who likely is the most familiar with those other laws and regulations would be your governing body's legal counsel. That person is a powerful resource if you have access to legal counsel. But in addition to your governing body's legal counsel, or if you have legal counsel through the Oregon School Board Association or another support association, we also have several resources available for you to better understand and ensure that you're complying with public meetings

22:56 law. And also on our slides, I'm going to be showing the specific citations for the material that's in the Oregon Revised Statutes and the Oregon Administrative Rules. So you'll see those pop up on the lower right-hand corner of the slide, those legal numbers that I'll be referencing. Don't worry if you miss writing something down during the training. When it comes to resources, you will be receiving a bulletin from me after the training, so tomorrow morning, with links to all the resources that I'm addressing today. To start, I do want to make sure everyone is familiar with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission website, and with our staff. We have a section on our website that's specifically dedicated to public meetings law, and that section is very helpful to see frequently asked

23:44 questions and information and resources. Also, if there's an in-person training in your area, you can always check on the training section, and you can sign up for in-person training that's posted for open trainings there. And you can take a look at quick reference materials for public meetings law under those training resources. Also, if you wanted to take an online training with us, you could do that by signing up on our website too. You can request advice directly through our website, and a staff member will follow up with you to get the details of your situation.You can also sign up for OGAIC's newsletter, and it comes out quarterly with updates on the laws that are in OGAIC jurisdiction, so you can receive updates about public meetings law that way as

24:30 well. A quick note about advice from OGAIC. OGAIC staff can provide advice and guidance on how the laws in our jurisdiction apply to future or hypothetical situations. And we have different levels of advice that offer different levels of safe harbor protection if you request some written advice, you follow the written advice, and then a complaint were to be filed. But all advice and guidance and opinions that are issued by the commission are available to the public, and the advice and opinions are written by OGAIC's investigators and staff. And depending on the item, they are reviewed by our compliance and enforcement coordinator and our executive director, sometimes even our assistant attorney

25:15 general. So if you're requesting some advice from OGAIC, you can send us an email. You can call us on the phone. You can also visit our Salem office in person, and we're open Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00. Also, Chapter 199 in the Oregon Administrative Rules contains the administrative rules that are adopted by OGAIC. Division 50, you see, has those public meetings law rules. And then Division 40 has executive session rules because executive session's part of OGAIC jurisdiction for longer. Now, the attorney general's office puts together a public records and meetings manual. This is a super useful resource. We encourage any board and commission and committee members in Oregon to

26:03 be familiar with this manual, the Public Records and Meetings Manual. The attorney general gives guidance on both public records and public meetings. And that's important because OGAIC has jurisdiction specifically over public meetings, but the attorney general gives guidance on public records as well. So public records questions, you can check in the attorney general's manual. Now, they have a free PDF copy on their website, and I do include the link to the PDF copy in the additional resources that you receive in the follow-up email. So you'll get the link to that free PDF copy that's on this page. Just a note about this manual is that it was updated toward the end of

26:48 2024, and that was the same time that OGAIC was drafting administrative rules for public meetings law, so this version of the manual does not reflect any of the public meetings law rules that were adopted in October of 2024. When you're checking in the manual for public meetings law materials, also take a look at Division 50 in OGAIC's administrative rules and get that full picture. Now, from those resources, I'm going to start in on definitions. And in definitions, I'm looking to answer this question and to look more closely at how the law answers it. When do we need to hold a public meeting? And the answer to that question might seem really obvious, but sometimes it's not so clear. So

27:36 first, let's look at what the law defines as a public meeting. Public meetings law defines a meeting as the convening of a governing body of a public body for which a quorum is required in order to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision on any matter. Now, I'm going to take a closer look at all of these key terms, starting with the public body. So the public body is the state, any regional council, county, city, or district, or any municipal or public corporation. And a public body includes any agency of those bodies. So the public body may include boards,

28:24 departments, commissions, councils, bureaus, committees, subcommittees, or advisory groups. And in Oregon, the gauge of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by the Oregon State Constitution, or to pursue meeting some requirement in the State Constitution or another statute or administrative rule, maybe an order or intergovernmental agreement or bylaw or some other official act. But a single public official, like the mayor or a fire chief or the governor, is not a public body for public meetings law. So now I'll take a closer look at governing body. Governing body means two or more members of any public

29:11 body who have the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration. And a department headed by an individual public official is not a governing body. So I'm going to take a closer look at what types of bodies have that authority to make decisions or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration. And you will see the Oregon Administrative Rule number on this next slide for the two types of governing bodies. Those are decision-making bodies and advisory bodies, and both have roles on the public body's policies or administration. Decision-making bodies have that authority directly to make decisions. So a body meets that

29:58 standard if their decision-making authority includes the power to exercise governmental power and act on behalf of a public body. And examples of decision-making bodies that are governing bodies would include school boards, city councils, county commissions, planning commissions, state boards and commissions, and fire district boards that direct exercise of governmental powerNow, also, advisory bodies are governing bodies, and they are providing recommendations on policy or administration to the public body. Often, an advisory body is created by the main governing body, like the city council or the school board, to help advise it. Sometimes, like in the

30:45 example of the city council having in their charter details of how they appoint their budget committee, giving them recommendations on the policy and administration of the city budget, that budget committee could be an example of that kind of advisory body governing body. Governing bodies and public bodies should be aware that when they form bodies like committees or sub-committees for the purpose of providing those recommendations on policy or administration, they're creating a separate governing body, and each of these governing bodies would be subject to public meetings law. So if you are working with a group and you're not sure if they are an

31:32 advisory body or not, that's a really good time to check with your legal counsel, and you can also contact OGA for some advice. Our examples of advisory bodies that would be governing bodies would be that budget committee from the example with the city council and the budget committee, but also advisory committees, ad hoc committees, and school district site councils. So what are not considered governing bodies? First, fact-gathering bodies that only have the authority to gather and provide purely factual information to a public body and do not have the authority to make a decision or a recommendation

32:18 would not be governing bodies. But every fact-gathering body is a little bit different, and it's important to note that if a group has that authority to choose what facts they're going to present, they may be in the position of being able to make that recommendation. That comes up against the question of advisory bodies. That can be a hard line to identify. So again, if you're not sure, definitely check with legal counsel, or you can reach out to OGA for some advice. And the other body that is not a governing body would be bodies advising an individual public official. So in this case, bodies are appointed

33:03 by an individual public official. That group is appointed by that singular public official. They have the authority to make recommendations only to that individual public official, and that official has the authority to take the recommendation or leave it, and does not have to pass those recommendations on unchanged to the public body. Now, I'm going to talk a little bit more about quorum. Quorum is the minimum number of governing body members required to transact business. Many governing bodies have a policy or bylaw stating how many members are required for their quorum. And for example, the ethics commission has nine commissioner seats

33:51 and has a rule stating the quorum of our governing body is always five commissioners. So that means even if we have a commissioner position vacant, or we have three commissioners out sick and not attending a meeting, our quorum's always five. If the governing body doesn't have a policy or other directive, then it's a simple majority of the governing body. So if a city has 10 members on their council and they don't have a policy or directive, their simple majority quorum would be six. Now I'm going to talk about convening, and before I go into detail on convening, I do need to define communication.

34:37 In public meetings law, communication is expressing or transmitting information to another person through verbal, non-verbal, written, or electronic means. And convening is how governing bodies gather and communicate, and that can be in a variety of different ways, whether the governing body is gathering in a physical location, using electronic video or telephone technology to communicate among governing body members in real time, using serial electronic written communication among members, using an intermediary to communicate among members. Any and all of these can be convening,

35:22 and you'll remember the definition of a meeting is the convening of a governing body of a public body for which a quorum is required in order to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision on any matter. So there may be some situations where governing body members need to be mindful of their communications and when those communications are convenings, and some restrictions placed on them in public meetings law, specifically to make sure that the public is informed. To address that, I'm going to talk more about intermediary and then address serial communications. So

36:07 intermediary is a person who is used to facilitate communications among members of the governing body about a matter subject to deliberation or decision by the governing body. That term, intermediary, can include a member of the governing body, so a governing body member may be the intermediary, or it could be a staff memberThe key is facilitating those communications among the members of the governing body about a matter that is coming before them to deliberate or decide on. So as an example, let's just imagine that I'm serving on a five-person board,

36:52 and in this example, I'm Counselor A. I run into one of my fellow counselors, let's call them Counselor B, at the grocery store. And at the grocery store, Counselor A and Counselor B, we chat about a proposed ordinance that our council's going to be voting on in our next public meeting. And so we chat about it, and that's two out of the five of our council have talked about it. And then Counselor A and Counselor B leave the grocery store, and later on that evening, Counselor B calls a third counselor, Counselor C, on the phone, and tells Counselor C about the chat from the grocery store about that ordinance that the

37:38 council's voting on in our next meeting, and asks Counselor C to share thoughts about that ordinance. So in that example, the information that is being communicated about is that matter of the ordinance. That's the matter that's coming before my council to deliberate and decide on. And in that example, Counselor B is the intermediary who is facilitating those communications among three out of the five people on my five-person council. That brings up the question of quorum and brings us to serial communications, because serial communications happen when a series of communications of any kind are used outside a

38:25 meeting conducted in compliance with public meetings law. And the law says that a quorum of governing body members cannot use serial communications to deliberate or decide on any matter. All communications that are used to deliberate or decide on any matter need to happen during a meeting that's in compliance with public meetings law. Serial communications include in-person conversations, telephone, video conferencing, written communications, including emails, texts, social media posts, communication through intermediaries, and any other means of conveying information. And so the law says that a quorum of governing

39:11 body members cannot use serial communications to deliberate or decide on any matter. And that means the example with the intermediary, again, on that five-person council, facilitating communication among three of the five, brings it into this category of those prohibited serial communications. Another thing that governing body members need to be mindful of would be those written communications. So in the same example of the five-person council that I'm serving on, let's say I am posting on my personal social media account. I'm writing a post why I'm not voting in favor of the proposed budget that's coming before my board in a future meeting. And that proposed budget is that matter that's coming before my board to

39:58 deliberate and decide on. Now, one of my fellow councilors gives my post a thumbs up, so that's two, and then a third councilor writes a comment on my post how they oppose my position. So that becomes those three out of the five. This is a situation where it's important for governing body members to be mindful of their communications and these requirements. And we do have a frequently asked questions guide on our website with multiple scenarios and multiple details explaining those requirements of how those serial communications can become examples of something that may violate public meetings law.

40:44 But ultimately, it is the matter of the authority of the ethics commission to make any determinations if they are presented with situations. It's their authority to make any determination about whether communications have occurred or not. So it is ultimately their authority. We have frequently asked questions available with scenarios that board members do find helpful, and I do include the PDF copy of that in the resource bulletin that I send out after trainings. Now, even though board members need to be mindful of communications, they also need to know there are some forms of communication where public meetings law may not apply.

41:30 So three kinds of communication between members of the governing body that may not fall under the public meetings law. First category, communication that's purely factual or educational in nature and conveys no deliberation or decision that might reasonably come before the governing body. Now, an example of this could be a training from the Oregon Government Ethics Law, so training from our commission on public meetings law or on government ethics law. That phrase "purely factual or educational", purely is kind of rare in the law. So again, it's got to be specific to purely factual or educational in nature,

42:16 and communications that are not related to any matter that at any time could reasonably be foreseen to come before the governing body for deliberation and decision. Now, that could be a social gathering, like a birthday party, so long as there are no discussions about official business. Now, alsoAnything that is non-substantive in nature would not be communication that public meetings law applies to. And an example of this could be all board members receive a text message reminding them of their upcoming meeting and sharing a link to join that meeting. Now, if a board member replies all to that text and just

43:01 says, "Hey, I can't make it on the 23rd," that's an example of that non-substantive communication, just about scheduling and taking leave. But if the governing body is unsure if public meetings law applies to communications, that's a great time to check with legal counsel or to reach out to OGEC for some advice. Now, we've talked a lot about communications. Let's talk about a decision. Decisions are actions and matters subject to action that a governing body makes. And the law says, in order to conduct the business of a governing body, the vote of the quorum of the governing body is required to take an action, determination, vote, or final

43:47 disposition, and this action is on a matter that is a motion, order, proposal, measure, ordinance, or resolution. This is a decision. And the decision-making process is the process the governing body engages in or does to make a decision. And you'll notice communications happening in this decision-making process. You can also see the Oregon Administrative Rule cited on this slide. So, in that decision-making process, it includes identifying or selecting the nature of the decision to be made, figuring out what kind of decision to make, and gathering information that relates to the decision to be made. Also, identifying and assessing alternatives to that

44:33 decision and weighing or considering information. And finally, making that decision. And that brings us to deliberate. Deliberation means discussion or communication that is part of a decision-making process. So, discussion means consideration or debate on the matter, and like I mentioned earlier, those communications can be verbal, non-verbal, written, or electronic. So now, we know what makes up a meeting. Now let's look at what are the different types of meetings.

45:20 Public meetings law applies to regularly scheduled meetings and special meetings, and also emergency meetings and executive sessions, whether that executive session is convened on its own as a standalone meeting, or it's convened as part of a regular or special or emergency meeting. Also, public meetings law applies to work sessions or workshop meetings, which are held for the purpose of presenting information to the governing body to prepare the governing body for a regular or special meeting, or to allow the governing body to engage in preliminary discussion or deliberations. And I do have a couple of situations that

46:05 are not meetings. First, any on-site inspection of any project or program. That provision means that a school board can visit an alternative high school in another district. They can tour those facilities and learn more about those programs, and that's included in this provision. But it's important to also make sure that school board members are being mindful of what they're talking about on this tour, because the school board is on this tour, and if then they started talking about their upcoming budget meeting, and matters that are coming before them directly to deliberate and decide on, that

46:50 discussion would constitute a meeting. So, the key with the on-site inspection is for it to be about that inspection. Also, a gathering of the members of the governing body at a national, regional, or state association gathering, that the public body belongs to that association, or the members of the governing body belong to that association, like the Oregon School Board Association Conference, that school board members can all attend. Those gatherings are not meetings, but it's still important to note that conversations in those situations still must not be about those topics that are going to come before your governing body for consideration.

47:35 So, to return to that initial question of when do we need to hold a public meeting, we hold a public meeting when a quorum of a governing body of a public body convenes in order to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision on any matter. That's when we have a meeting. And just like Ken shared at the beginning, the Oregon form of government requires an informed public who are aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information on which those decisions were made. And that means any meetings held by a governing body must be open to the public, and a meeting can be closed to the public only when

48:23 there's a specific statute that allows it. And the purpose of public meetings law is to make sure that governing bodies make decisions in a way that's open and transparent. Now, that brings me to the end of definitions. Thank you for holding your questions during that section. We do have a poll after this one.But I'm open to questions before the poll. So I've- So if you use your mic. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. So I have a question. So, we get a purely factual thing saying we're having a meeting on this date, and I per se, "Can we add X to the

49:10 agenda?" And, someone said, "I think it's timely we do that." And someone else says, "I'd rather wait till later." Have we just violated the public meeting law? That's a great question. So the question is about when is it acceptable to add agenda items? Does that have to happen during a public meeting? Right. That question is going to go back to the definitions. So ultimately,

49:56 it really is going to go back to this, the quorum of the governing body of the public body convening to make a decision or to deliberate our decision on any matter. And where something becomes a meeting is in the authority of the ethics commission specifically to decide, but best practices can be adopted if the governing body isn't sure about something, some communication being a meeting or not, that's an important time to check with legal counsel about specifics.

50:44 Because it's always going to come down to the quorum of the governing body convening to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision. Yeah. My second question is, I'm very new to the board, and I believe that school boards have really two fundamental purposes. Number one, to hire and evaluate the superintendent, and two, to adopt a budget. Virtually anything we talk about is either for the purpose of creating the budget or

51:29 hiring or evaluating a superintendent. So how can I be trained? Right? Can I talk to the board members saying, "What are the hot issues? What are the rub points? Where are we... " Because that's critical. So I don't know how I can ethically make that happen. Well, that's a great question. The Oregon form of government does place the specific responsibility on governing body members. And so a key kind of meeting that governing bodies use

52:15 is also that public work session. All of these types of meetings are public meetings, and work sessions are included in that. So, at the beginning of the training, I think you mentioned that the virtue of having this meeting was required that we, either this be a public session, but then I thought I heard you say that the purely factual or educational meetings did not necessarily constitute a public meeting. So I'm confused about whether or not this needs to be a public meeting. That is a great question. So

53:01 this training specifically is purely factual and educational in nature. That means that a quorum of a board could attend a training altogether, and it not be a public meeting. Some boards do choose to have a public meeting, and that is outside of my purview of how that's chosen. But this training specifically, because of the type of communication that it is, and specifically it being purely factual and educational in nature, that means that, for example, that doesn't apply to every training.

53:46 And that the ethics commission, as they are a governing body, if they want to be trained in public meetings law, since they have the authority over it, that training has to be in a public meeting for them because that is the matter that comes before them for deliberation and decision. Does that make sense? I think I heard you say it would be specific to the Government Ethics Commission- Right ... Board. Right. But I'm not clear then for our board- Right ... whether or not this has to be a public meeting. So boards that are not the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, other Oregon boards wouldn't have to hold a public meeting to hold a training

54:33 on government ethics law or on public meetings law. But some boards do choose to hold a public meeting in order to have their training, and that is out of my purview of giving the training. I just want to be clear about the difference of what it means to be purely factual and educational in nature. It's because-Boards other than the Oregon Government Ethics Commission don't have anything to deliberate or decide on that is about public meetings law or ethics law. That makes it purely factual and educational in nature for other boards that are not the Ethics Commission. Okay. The second question I have is, I guess, and I'm not clear, is

55:18 it would seem a lot of this about public bodies and governing bodies, why does this not apply to the state legislature? That's a great question. Now, unfortunately, I don't have the citation memorized for the provision of the Oregon State Constitution that governs communication of legislators. Okay. And so I don't trust my memory enough. I think it's in Article 4, but I don't trust my memory enough for that specific citation to specifically governing how the

56:06 legislature does their business. But that is a big question, and the authority of the Ethics Commission is what I've described. What I can tell you about the legislature is only that part that is in the state constitution. Okay, thanks. They also have a quorum of 40 of the 60 in the House, and so neither party will ever have more than 40, so they can still caucus. But that's, yeah, beside the point of just

56:51 caucus of having multiple board members and serial communication amongst legislators, right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be the quorum, it just has to be whether or not the serial communication is even allowed. So what- My understanding is it's- Can't hear you ... my understanding is that when they pass the legislation, they exempted the legislative body. Okay. So for, say, a new board member, maybe another board member was wanting to share, like, "Oh, here's where you can find a state report card. Boop, there's the link. Everyone's on there." Is that serial communication?

57:37 Because it's a public, it's a state report card. You can find it online, but if you're a new board member, that might be a little foreign, not intuitive to find. So, it's factual. Is that accurate? I'm sorry that I can't remember the numbering on the scenarios that we have in our resource, but the information that you're asking about and describing is very similar to at least two scenarios that are on the document. So I would definitely recommend that, and I'll have that for you tomorrow to review. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Now

58:27 well, I'll go ahead and ask it. If a whole group was wanting to go look at some land that we own, or just a big group. Say we do a real brief public meeting law, like, "Here's the do's and don'ts. Let's get on the bus and let's go." Is that a possibility? If we're not deciding anything and we're observing . Sorry, I didn't mail you a bunch of- For the situation that you're describing, going back to the specifics, the resource that I would recommend about

59:15 that material that you're sharing would actually be, there's a frequently asked questions section that's in the attorney general's manual. And I would recommend that specifically because it addresses some scenarios, including something like a retreat. So I'd recommend that as a resource for more details. Okay. Thank you. It seems a key element of my takeaway in the earlier presentation was the key element to a violation of serial communications is deliberation or decision. Is that correct? And then, of course, a quorum.

1:00:02 So that is going to go back to, yes, that a prohibited serial communication is when a quorum of governing body members are using serial communication outside a public meeting to deliberate or decide on any matter. That all communications to deliberate or decide on any matter need to be during a meeting that's in compliance with public meetings law. So my question is, in most districts, they have a meeting, not a public meeting, but a meeting of the chair and/or the vice chair with the superintendent to set agendas for upcoming meetings or a meeting. So in our operating agreement, one of the ingredients is no surprises, meaning don't come into a

1:00:49 meeting without information necessarily and be surprised. So post agenda-setting meeting, can a chair then communicate to the board-What will be on the agenda and background information with the encouragement to take a look at that prior to the meeting, but with no leaning necessarily to a deliberation or a decision. That would happen in the meeting. That's a great question. It brings more things than public meetings law into the question that you've asked, and I can only address what public meetings law

1:01:38 says and requires. And so, it's all going to go back to those factors of series of communications for the purpose of deliberating and deciding quorum outside of public meeting. Those are the factors that are shown in the prohibited serial communications, and the key of bringing in other elements like a public body's policies, those are outside of what I can

1:02:25 comment on. What I can comment on is just that this is the policy of public meetings law. And so, the policy of public meetings law is the public is informed, they're aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies, and the information upon which such decisions were made. And so, when it comes to anything that connects to public meetings law, but other laws and rules that regulate the governing body's meetings, that's where it's a good time to check with legal counsel.

1:03:12 I agree with that. The deliberation and decision, and the conversations around that needs to happen in a public meeting. But the work of any governing body is also to be a responsible participant in that is to be informed. So, if there's information that's going to take some study ahead of time, and you're not necessarily inferring a direction, but you're presenting it as factual and/or educational, again, are you then saying, "Well, let's check with your attorney?" If it comes down

1:03:59 to specifics, I can't- I get that. You're not an attorney. We're not trying to confer that on you or put that responsibility on you. So, if we did seek out legal opinion on that and they said, "Yes, that's going to be okay to do that," or, "No, please don't do that," and we follow that, then... Well, the other important thing for governing bodies to be aware of is that governing bodies can request written advice about future events from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Okay. And so

1:04:44 governing bodies can request documents such as a commission advisory opinion, and the commission has issued that kind of advice to other governing bodies who've requested it about certain elements of board business and how to comply with public meetings law regarding board business. So, that's an option for governing bodies as well. So, if indeed we go that route and we get an opinion from OGEC on that, is that going to be non-substantive in as far as being able to act on that?

1:05:30 Because the governing body maybe they're not attorneys either, I don't know. But I'm trying to figure out with the passage of the new laws for boards, it's created this conundrum between being public when appropriate, and I think we all understand what the reason is and the justification, and actually being a good board member, which requires getting information. Thank you for sharing that with me. I have business cards for my executive director as well, if that's a person you'd

1:06:15 like to contact with more. But what you are describing really goes back to what the Oregon form of government is requiring of board members, and what that means. Yeah. Thank you. So maybe we test it out and see what the response is and go that direction. But thank you. I'm not trying to put you in a uncomfortable position. All right, so I do have a poll for this section, and it just has two questions, those first two questions from before.

1:07:02 So first, who is held accountable for public meetings law violation complaints filed with OGEC?Choose one. Options are A, staff, B, governing body members, C, staff and governing body members. Excellent. Now, wonderful. We have complete consensus on this one. It is governing body members who are responsible for public meetings law violation complaints filed with... Okay. Now, this question, again, choose one answer. Governing body uses a Google document to do collaborative work outside of meetings. Members can edit this at any time. Is this a violation of public meetings law? Our options are A, yes, this is an example of

1:07:48 serial communication, and a quorum has access to contribute, edit, and review what has been shared outside a meeting. Option B, no, because while all the members can edit the document, the content will be discussed at a future public meeting. Option C, no, because in addition to the governing body members, the public also has access to this document. Excellent. All right, so this is an example of serial communications. Now, I have some administrative provisions of public meetings law to share with you tonight,

1:08:33 and that includes the public attendance and meeting location requirements and the accessibility requirements for public meetings, also meeting notices and recordings and minutes for public meetings, and then later on, also the grievance process. All of these are administrative functions of public meetings, but governing body members need to be aware of these provisions, even if they have staff support on these tasks, because individual governing body members, as we talked about, are responsible for ensuring that these provisions of public meetings law are being followed. So to start, public attendance and meeting location requirements. The law says that all meetings of the governing body of a public body

1:09:19 shall be open to the public, and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting except as otherwise provided by Oregon Revised Statute 192.610 through 192.705, and that's the entirety of public meetings law. This part of the law says that a quorum of governing body may not meet in private for the purpose of deciding on or deliberating toward a decision on any matter, except as otherwise permitted in public meetings law. Now, public meetings law is also limited in what it requires. Generally, public meetings law specifically requires that the public are allowed to attend meetings.

1:10:04 Public meetings law on its own doesn't require that the public is allowed to comment or testify at a meeting. Now, a governing body may permit public comment or testimony because they choose to do so or because they are following other statutes and rules, and the governing body can have their own procedure for how the public participates in the meetings. What public meetings law says about it is that it's up to the governing body and the presiding officer to maintain decorum in a meeting, and they may limit public participation accordingly. So now I'll talk a little bit more about meeting location requirements and how to ensure the public has access to meetings.

1:10:51 No public meetings can be held in places that discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, or disability. And it's discrimination on the basis of disability for a governing body to meet in a place inaccessible to persons with disabilities. It's also discrimination to fail to make a good faith effort to have an interpreter present for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing if that interpreter is requested for a regularly scheduled meeting. Now, what are the requirements for those interpreter requests?

1:11:36 The person requesting the interpreter needs to give the governing body at least 48 hours notice of the request for the interpreter. And I'll be talking about the meeting notices in the next section, but this is what the law says, requiring someone to make that request at least 48 hours before the meeting. This is part of why it's so important to give as much notice of regularly scheduled public meetings as possible. When someone is requesting an interpreter, they need to include the name of the person who makes the request, and they need to include the sign language person. Excuse me, the language preference of the person who's making this request and any other relevant information that the governing body may request.

1:12:23 So again, this is specifically requiring that interpreter for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing if that interpreter is requested for a regularly scheduled meeting. Those are the requirements, and if a meeting is being held with less than 48 hours of notice, a reasonable effort shall be made to have an interpreter present, but the requirement for an interpreter does not apply to emergency meetings. And requests for deaf and hard of hearing services can be requested through the Oregon Department of Human Services website, and the link to this page is included in that follow-up bulletin with other resources. So the governing body needs to hold their meetings in their borders, in their jurisdiction, or they can meet at their administrative headquarters, or they can meet at

1:13:10 the nearest practical location.And state, county, city, or special district groups within land that's owned by a federally recognized Oregon tribe, meetings can be held in the territory as long as it's in the geographical boundaries of the state. So if you are not sure of the geographical boundary of your district, you can check with administrative staff or in your charter, or check with legal counsel if you're not sure about where your meeting being in line with those meeting location requirements. But these are all the options that public meetings law gives. Also, if multiple governing bodies are meeting together, or a governing body is meeting with an elected official of a federally recognized Oregon tribe, the law

1:13:58 says meetings should be held in one of those jurisdictions or meet at the nearest practical location. In the event of an actual emergency necessitating immediate action, meetings may be held in locations other than those described in the law. We don't have a definition of an actual emergency. But often, when we're addressing emergencies, what comes up is floods, fires, catastrophic weather events, catastrophic plumbing problems. So also, training sessions may be held outside the jurisdiction as long as no deliberations toward a decision are involved.

1:14:45 And any governing body meeting, including executive session, can be held using electronic communication or by telephone. The public meetings law applies to these meetings. If the meeting is being held only electronically or only by telephone, the governing body needs to provide the public with a place or one electronic means where the public can listen to the meeting in real time, and they can do that by making a place available where the public can listen to or view the communication at the time it occurs. Or they can provide one electronic means by providing call-in numbers, links, a link to view a live video feed, things like that.

1:15:31 Now, the law also says that regardless of how the meeting is being held, to the extent possible, governing bodies must provide the public with access to their meetings by telephone, video, or other electronic or virtual means. So that phone number to call in to join the teleconference or that link to view the live video feed would work for this opportunity to attend meetings virtually. And if the governing body is allowing people to speak in person, or they're allowing people to submit written testimony in person, people attending online need to have that same opportunity to speak online, or to submit their written testimony electronically during the meeting. And now also, executive sessions,

1:16:16 media are statutorily authorized to be present at those sessions, and if any person is attending the executive session by telephone or video or other electronic means, the governing body shall provide members of the media with that same opportunity to attend virtually, and that includes if any member of the governing body is attending virtually. Now, nothing in this subsection prevents the governing body from establishing reasonable security measures to ensure the media's attendance by telephone, video, or other electronic means is conducted through a secure connection or method. Now, I'll take a look at who is media.

1:17:02 It's important to note that by law, OGEIC cannot define media, and the attorney general's opinion, 8291, addresses the issue of who qualifies as media. But it is up to each governing body to determine if an individual meets the requirements in the attorney general's opinion. And governing bodies can adopt an application or a procedure for individuals to be recognized as media. But that does not mean that someone could be denied access to a meeting, because they didn't follow the procedure. The governing body's responsibility is to determine if the

1:17:50 individual meets the requirements, and media are statutorily authorized to attend. So if a complaint is filed regarding an individual of the media not being provided access to a meeting, that matter would come before the ethics commission, and the ethics commission has the authority to then look at whether the governing body's decision was reasonable in light of the factors in the attorney general's opinion. All right. So questions so far on public attendance and meeting locations? So, there's usually typically for executive session, confidential information. Is there any recourse if somebody from the

1:18:38 media discloses that information from executive session? Or who's held responsible if they disclose what happened in executive session? I have some details from the attorney general's manual about how the governing body can direct the media not to disclose something, but there is not consequence in public meetings law about that- Okay Thank you. So one of the questions was,

1:19:24 I'm sorry, this goes back, but does the decision have to be essentially on the docket at a future time? Can we talk about something that's not scheduled for a decision or deliberation in the future? That's a great question. The answer is that my authority is

1:20:09 to tell you what the law says it requires, and the authority of the Ethics Commission is to determine whether something is or is not a meeting and stuff like that, because that's part of their jurisdiction specifically to determine. And so, if you are looking for advice about best practice or something that relates to making sure about compliance, that's where I would recommend the frequently asked questions section in the Attorney General's manual. They do have short answers that describe very similar to what you're asking me. I would recommend that, and also

1:20:56 advice from the Ethics Commission is an option, too. And another question is, if there is a grievance filed against a member, do they have the opportunity to defend themselves against the grievance? So I will be addressing the grievance process with OGE in detail toward the end of the training tonight as well. Thank you. All right, so I do have a poll question for this section. Just one poll question. Choose one answer on this one. What accommodations are you required to give under public meetings law? Options are, A, meet in an accessible location, B, meet in an accessible location and provide an interpreter if requested, no matter what, C, meet in an accessible location and make a good faith effort to provide an interpreter if

1:21:42 requested at least 48 hours before the meeting, or D, nothing is required. Excellent. Thank you very much. I see we have complete consensus on this one. So now I'm going to talk about meeting notices, and governing body members are responsible for making sure that meeting notices are being done correctly. We know that sometimes governing body members directly provide notice of meetings, and some governing bodies have staff support on meeting notices, but it's still the responsibility of governing body members. And the law says that in order for the public to be aware of a public meeting, the governing body needs to issue a public notice to the general public and to interested persons which have requested notice, and that includes

1:22:27 members of the media. So for regularly scheduled meetings, this meeting notice needs to be issued at least 48 hours before the meeting is held. And that 48-hour notice requirement is included in the administrative rule, and you'll see that administrative rule cited on our next slide about where to post. So in order for this notice to the general public requirement to be satisfied, the meeting notice needs to be posted in an obvious place on the public body or the governing body's website. Or it could be on a publicly accessible third-party website that links to the public body or governing body's website. If you are with a state agency or an educational service district, state agencies and educational service districts are required to

1:23:15 post to the Oregon Transparency website. Other public bodies may also post there. It is a giant calendar of public meetings in Oregon. What I can say is that Friday is a very popular day to have public meetings. If you check out the Oregon Transparency website, you'll see that calendar is very full of public meetings. Other places that meetings can be noticed are in the newspaper, on the community or bulletin board, on the public body's social media account, by email or by mail. And more details about all of that you can find in the Oregon Administrative Rule, which is cited here, and that's in Division 50, Rule 40, Sub 2. Now let's look at what is required to be part of that meeting notice.

1:24:01 The notice has to include the date and time of the meeting and information on where the meeting's going to be held, that physical address, the link to join online, and the list of subjects that will be considered at this meeting. Now, the governing body has to provide that list of subjects as part of their meeting notice. Often, that means posting the agenda, but the governing body is not limited in how they amend their agenda. They can add things to the agenda, they can remove subjects from the agenda before or during their meeting. But they do have to post that list as part of their meeting notice, and they have to include the name, telephone number, and email address of a

1:24:47 person at the public body to contact if someone needed to request an interpreter or other communication aid. Now, if a meeting is being held only as an executive session, the meeting notice for the session has to include all the rest of this information and needs to identify the specific statutory citation that allows the meeting to be held as an executive session. Now, I have a sample meeting notice for us. You'll see this one has the time and date of the meeting, the location where the meeting was held. So that included the address and that it was going to be in the second floor conference room. That building has multiple floors.Then the teleconference number to join

1:25:32 by telephone and the link to join online via Teams, all those location things, and contact information if someone needed to request an interpreter, both the phone number and the email address for Becky at our office. Special meeting notice requirements include that no special meetings can be held without at least 24 hours of notice, and that notice needs to go to members of the general public, members of the governing body, and to the news media which have requested notice. So, for all of those, it has to go out to them at least 24 hours in advance. And all of that information is also covered in that same administrative rule. So,

1:26:18 emergency meetings, important to note, in the event of an actual emergency, the governing body can give notice of an emergency meeting with less than 24 hours of notice. But you still have to give as much notice as you can of this meeting, still contact the media and the interested persons, and still post that meeting notice to the usual locations. Then, in the minutes for that meeting, describe the emergency that justified less than 24 hours of notice. All right, so questions about noticing? So, yeah, you listed, are there minimum requirements in terms of where the notice needs to

1:27:04 be applied? You said there was multiple places it could be applied, but are there any of those that it's required? And what are the minimum- Right ... requirements? So, in order for the general public to be aware of a public meeting, it has to be posted to the public body or the governing body's website- Okay ... in an obvious place. Okay. Now, that notice, as I mentioned, needs to go to the public and to interested persons and the media. And the details of those people and how they would have contacted the governing body to let the governing body know, that's all included in the administrative rule as well, about some way that the governing body could let

1:27:49 people know how to let them know that they're interested persons. But notice to the general public has to be on the public body's website in an obvious place, and specifies that it's either the public body or the governing body's website or on an accessible third-party website that links to the public body or governing body's website, so that the public can look easily in an obvious place. Okay. So theoretically then, each board member, when there's a meeting notice, should be verifying on the website that it's there, because that's our responsibility. What I'm hearing is we're ultimately responsible for if it's on the website or not, even though we have

1:28:37 no control over posting to the website. So, your characterization that it's the governing body members' responsibility individually to make sure it's posted accurately is accurate to what the law requires. That public meetings law is applying to governing body members individually, yes. You mentioned that the location should be accessible. Is there any guidance as to the time? Guidance about? I could imagine if somebody wanted very little public involvement, they could have their meeting at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. It's a ridiculous example, but-

1:29:24 Public meetings law is specific about certain things, but Public Meetings Law itself does not address the most accessible times for public meetings to be held. Yeah. The requirements are how far in advance notice is given to the public. Okay. Yeah. So, if you wanted something... Yeah. So, that's up to you for it to make sense to your constituents, right? So, for this section, I do have one poll question for you, and it is- Can I ask another question? Sure, yeah. So, is there any definition around obvious? Because a website is there, but most websites for school districts are quite huge. So, is it sufficient to

1:30:10 just post it to the agenda page that has all of our meeting schedules? So- Or does the board define that? That's a good question, and that is an example of a matter that's been brought to our commission in the past to deliberate and decide on. So, that's something that you could look through cases that have been decided by our commission, as those matters, those dispositions are public record. And it goes back to the things that would be the factors, right? Are showing people how to find something.

1:30:57 So, you mentioned having a page that's labeled where all agendas are posted. Does it ultimately fall to the board to... The board could define, "Here's where we would like it posted"? Or- That's where, because the ethics commission wouldn't have jurisdiction over public bodies' policies, but the compliance, theResponsibility of compliance is that if a matter comes before the commission, then the commission makes a determination, and that is the authority of the commission to determine that based on the

1:31:43 individual factors that they're presented with. Okay, thank you. Yeah. All right, so it's just choosing one answer for this question of when do meeting notices need to be posted? A, within a reasonable amount of time for all meetings, B, within a reasonable amount of time for regular meetings, 24 hours before special meetings, and as much time as possible for emergency meetings, C, at least 48 hours before regular meetings, 24 hours before special meetings, and as much time as possible for emergency meetings. Excellent. And again, that 48-hour requirement is specifically clarified in the administrative rule.

1:32:30 Now, after this section, up next, I have a short break in my list, talking about recordings and minutes for public meetings. This is an administrative category that's enforced in public meetings law, how meetings are recorded, and how those recordings are made available. And as I've mentioned for some of the other sections, public meetings law is specific about certain things that it requires. There's other things the public meetings law on its own does not address. And some questions may come up for you about retaining records. That's going to be part of public records law. So specifically, I'm going to address what public meetings law says is required, and its governing body members who are individually responsible for making sure that these are being kept correctly.

1:33:16 The law says that the governing body is required to provide documentation of all its meetings in one of the following forms: a sound or video or digital recording, or written minutes. Now, full transcripts are not required, but those written minutes must give a true reflection of the matters discussed at the meeting and the views of the participants. And all minutes or recordings shall be available to the public within a reasonable time after the meeting. And the minutes need to include the names of governing board members who are present and any motions, proposals, resolutions, orders, ordinances, measures, and their results.

1:34:03 Also, the results of all votes and the vote of each member by name, unless your board has more than 25 members, and the substance of any discussion and reference to any document discussed. Now, voting is one of the most important parts of keeping the public informed, and all voting must be done by public vote. Secret ballots are not allowed. And the results of all votes need to be recorded. That includes the vote of each individual governing body member by name. And that means that if you're using written ballots, that ballot needs to identify the name of the governing body member, and that vote, including the member's name, needs to be announced during the meeting where voting

1:34:50 happened. Now, often I do get questions about, so how do we record the vote if all the governing body members vote in favor? Well, the answer to that is going to depend on how your governing body keeps the official record. Is your official record written minutes or an audio recording or a video recording? No matter how you're keeping that official record, the official minutes must record the vote of each member by name. So if you're keeping written minutes, those minutes must accurately indicate the vote of each member by name. And that means that if all board members voted in favor and it was unanimous, you would write, "Motion passes

1:35:37 unanimously. Board members A, B, C, D, and E voted in favor." Or if it was a split vote, you'd write, "Motion passed three to two. Councilor X, Y, and Z voted in favor. Councilor A and B voted opposed." So if you are keeping written minutes, the announcement in the meeting could just be the vote result, that it passes unanimously, but the written minutes need to record the actual votes of each member by name. And if your official minutes are an audio or video recording of the meeting, then the chair needs to announce each person's vote in the meeting so that it is accurately recorded. Now, public meetings law is specific in certain

1:36:23 provisions requiring certain governing bodies to comply with recordings. So specifically, in 2025 and beyond, public meetings law requires that the board of directors for common or union high school districts, the board of directors for education service districts, the board of education for community college districts, and the board of trustees for public universities have to make a video recording of all their meetings, and within seven days following the meeting, post the video recording of the meeting on the public body's website or social media site. Now, if the public body lacks the broadband internet access to

1:37:10 post the video recording, they can comply by posting an audio recording of governing body meetings on the public body's website or social media site. And this does not apply to any portion of the meeting that's conducted in executive session, and it does not apply to a school district with less than 50 students. Ruth, just to clarify Is it either or website or social media site, or is it and? That's a good question. The wording that I have is the public body's website or social media site.

1:38:00 I know we do to our website. I'm less certain and just want to make sure if it's a and, that we do an and. And you don't need to answer tonight, but I want to make sure we're in compliance. Thank you. The language that I have is the public body's website or social media site. So is it okay if I ask a question? So on doing the digital recording, if that is hosted on a third party,

1:38:46 and they have issues, are we still responsible for... We've had in the past where there's been technical difficulties and sound issues not being on the recording, and if the third party chooses to go away, what is our responsibility in terms of maintaining those digital records? So that responsibility, any retention of records outside of what public meetings law specifically requires is going to be part of public records law. So that can also be where I'd recommend the attorney general's public records and meetings manual to check there. But this provision is specific to

1:39:32 public meetings law, and this is what that part requires. If you're asking about public access to a meeting, and if the recording goes down during a meeting, in public meetings law, that becomes the question of public access to a meeting electronically. And so the best practice answer for that is to know that that's the kind of thing that could be brought to the ethics commission to determine if it was compliant or not. And often for best practice reasons, that means that a board may stop their meeting and try to wait

1:40:20 until the public can get the access again. But regarding how long the third party retains the recordings, that's going to be in public records law if you have some specific responsibility outside of just what's here. In that situation, if it was unknown that you were having an audio fallout, aren't you covered by the written minutes? We do both, so- Right. And so that's where it becomes the question of public access during the meeting in real time versus the viability of the record. So yes, keeping the written minutes.

1:41:06 In that case, it would be really important for the written minutes to be official record in a meeting where hypothetically this happens, right? But still, the question of public access and the public being able to attend the meeting becomes the issue and the question at that point if the audio is failing. So is it, again, the individual board member's responsibility that the institution maintain the minutes? So if there aren't recorded minutes, who's held responsible? Individual board members? So the board members are individually responsible for making sure that these provisions of public meetings law are being followed.

1:41:53 And that means that in the keeping of the official minutes, if it's written minutes, has to record the vote of each member by name. If it's audio or video minutes, has to record the vote of each member by name. And if the official minutes of the meeting is an audio or video recording, that means that during the meeting, someone, the chair or the chair's designated representative, needs to announce the vote of each member by name, so it's accurately recorded and the public is informed. But if that doesn't happen, and it isn't caught during the meeting, afterwards, individual board members are responsible. Yes. That's how the law is written. Yeah.

1:42:42 Could we take a five-minute break? Would that be acceptable?We

1:47:48 have, I'm not so good at math, but my understanding is that we have 40 minutes remaining. And I have information for you on the executive session provisions and on the grievance process, the enforcement of public meetings law, and that training requirement. And so, as we've had a lot of discussion and questions in the first half, I'm going to ask you to keep any questions about executive sessions for the end of that executive session section, and then I'm happy to take more questions at the end of the training, but I am going to make sure that you get all the information about the grievance process and

1:48:34 the enforcement, and then I'm happy to take questions at that point. Is that agreeable to you? Sure. Thank you. Well, I respect your time, and I want to make sure that we're keeping in for what the training is. So- Well, Ruth, so it's important for Bob to get the certification that he attend the entire thing, and I imagine you have X number of things you need to get through to make that happen. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. All right. So,

1:49:19 in the second part of the training, I'm going to be talking about the executive session provisions and also the grievance process in public meetings law, then the enforcement of public meetings law, and that training requirement. And we'll have polling for each of these sections until the training requirement, which is just those details for you about what the law says, and then information on how you'll receive certificates, board members, for attending tonight's training. So, executive session provisions.An executive session is any meeting or part of a meeting of a governing body that's closed to certain persons for deliberation on specific matters. And a governing body may hold a meeting that consists of only an executive session.

1:50:06 Now, if that executive session is held as a standalone meeting, or if the executive session happens before a meeting that's open to the public, that announcement must be made in a properly issued meeting notice. So, before holding that executive session, the meeting must be noticed the same manner you provide notice of any open public meeting. That notice needs to be posted on the website and in the same places you provide notice of an open public meeting, and you need to be sure that that notice cites the specific statutory provision for entering executive session for this particular meeting. And make sure each governing body member gets a copy of that meeting notice so that everybody can independently verify the executive session has been cited properly, yes, this is the provision we're

1:50:53 using, and make sure they're following that provision when the meeting is being held. Now, an executive session can also be convened as part of an open public meeting. And the attorney general has pretty specific guidance about how to convene those executive sessions during an open session, so I'll be addressing that here. But before I go into that procedure, I do need to note that any governing body member who has a conflict of interest on an agenda item that they're going to discuss in executive session, they need to make a public announcement of their conflict of interest. So they need to announce that during the open public meeting before they go into the executive session. And so then, if the executive session will be convened as part

1:51:40 of the open public meeting, once all the board members who have conflicts of interest have announced those conflicts of interest publicly, then the presiding officer needs to announce in public that the governing body is holding an executive session. And in the announcement, need to cite the specific reasons and statutes for entering executive session for each subject you're going to discuss in this particular session, and let the public know what's going to happen next. If you intend to come out of executive session to take an action or vote, let the public know and let them know that you're coming back. If you have a particular time that you'll be coming back to open session, let them know that, and specify if any individuals may attend this

1:52:25 executive session. Then instruct the media and those additional specified attendees what may not be disclosed from this executive session. Now, if the governing body doesn't specify this, then the media may report on everything. And if the governing body happens to discuss matters that are not what they cited as the reason to hold this session, the media may report on those additional items, too. Now, keep in mind, there are times when news media may be excluded from attending an executive session, and I will address those a bit later on. Now, during the executive session, make sure the conversation is limited to only the topics that were cited as the reason for an executive session.

1:53:10 Make no final decision in an executive session, and I will talk in more detail about that quite shortly here. And make sure to keep minutes of all executive sessions, and that can be done through written minutes or a sound or video or digital recording. Now, some notes about returning to the open session. When you are ready to come back to open session, this is where it is important to let the public know what's going to happen next when you announce that you're going into executive session, because if you let the public know we're coming back to open session, but you did not specify a particular time, then you can open the door and open the virtual waiting room and announce you're

1:53:56 back in open session. But if you did let the public know a particular time that you would be reconvening that open session, if you're finished with executive session early, you still have to wait to convene the open session at that time that you told the public that you'd be there, so that they know that that's the time to be there, and they are able to attend. Because this is where some governing bodies just let the public know we're coming back to open session. Because the responsibility of making sure the public is informed could also mean that if you're running late on an executive session, you need to let the public know it's past the time, we're still in executive session, we're still coming back to open session. Right?

1:54:43 Making sure the public knows what's happening and that when the open session starts, they're able to attend. Because if you were to come back into open session unexpectedly after you previously announced that you would not reconvene into open session, you may be required to postpone any final action until another properly noticed meeting. Now, the Attorney General's manual does include some great resources for executive sessions, including a sample script that the chair can read when convening the executive session during the public meeting, and it has five key areas. First, stating that the governing body is entering executive session, citing the statutes for going into executive session for this particular meeting, listing only the provisions and activities that apply to this

1:55:31 meeting, and then in the next paragraph, addressing the attendees, the news media and the people who are allowed to remain, and the people who should leave the room now. Then in that third paragraph, instructing the news media what not to report on. And in the fourth paragraph, acknowledging no final decision will be made in executive session.Then in the fifth paragraph, stating that the meeting will return to open session and the audience is welcome to rejoin when the executive session is complete. Now, I'm going to address more about what those specific provisions say about what can be talked about in executive session. Executive sessions can only be held when it is permitted by specific

1:56:18 provision of the law, and those specific provisions and the express permission that they provide is going to be particular to the language that's in those individual provisions. So I'm going to be addressing those in more detail here in a minute. For the most part, the executive session provisions that are listed in public meetings law in ORS 192.660 are optional. Most of the time, the governing body could also hold an open meeting to talk about those same topics. Of course, when it comes to executive sessions, exceptions may apply, and the exception would be if there are other laws and regulations, FERPA regulations or HIPAA regulations, or specific federal and state laws requiring confidentiality.

1:57:06 So if a governing body isn't sure about those confidentiality requirements and how to comply with executive session provisions, that's a great time to reach out to legal counsel and make sure. Because, again, that governing body's legal counsel being familiar with those other laws and rules, that's an important resource. Now, if the governing body wants to meet in executive session, they have to make sure they have followed the prerequisites and other requirements. And for several of the provisions I'm going to address tonight, there are detailed prerequisites that you've got to meet before you can hold an executive session on that particular provision. So I'll talk about those. And the topics that are discussed in an executive session must be limited to the topics that are expressly

1:57:53 permitted by the specific provision under which that executive session was convened. So what the wording of the statute says, that is the express permission. And in those provisions, Oregon Public Meetings law gives specific permission for governing bodies to consider, consult, discuss, deliberate, and review specific topics in a meeting or session that is closed to the general public. What is not allowed would be to hold an executive session for the purpose of taking a final action or making a final decision, unless an exception in the statute applies. Now, when the governing body is in executive session,

1:58:38 they may come to a consensus, and the people in the room are going to know about that consensus, and that's okay. The purpose of this final decision prohibition is to make sure the public is aware of the results of discussions, and so making a formal vote in an open session satisfies that requirement, even if that public vote merely confirms a consensus that was reached in an executive session. Now, on our website, we have a reference guide for the executive session provisions, and we put them into five primary categories. Tonight, I'm going to be addressing four categories: confidential records and

1:59:23 litigation, the hiring and employment provisions, and negotiations, and then security and safety. Now, on our reference guide, we also have provisions that are used less frequently, but today I'm just talking about those first four categories, starting with confidential records and litigation. So there are two provisions in this category, and with all of the categories that I'm addressing, you're going to see the statutory information pop up on the slide. So the citation that allows that meeting to be held as an executive session is going to pop up on the slide for you. First, 192.660 sub 2 sub little F. A governing body can hold an executive session to review information or records that are exempt by law

2:00:11 from public inspection. Now, to enter executive session under this provision, that means the information or records must be expressly exempt by law, including federal and state statutes on confidentiality. The law has to say that material is confidential, and in Oregon law, that material is in public records law. So you can look at those lists in public records law, but an example of a record that could be reviewed under this provision is reviewing attorney-client privileged documents. So a governing body could use this provision to meet with their attorney in executive session, but they need to have a written record, like a legal memo. And there's another provision,

2:00:57 192.660 sub 2 sub little H, that allows a governing body to enter executive session to consult with their legal counsel, and their legal counsel needs to be part of that meeting. Their attorney can attend in person or by telephone or electronic means. This provision allows the governing body to discuss with legal counsel their legal rights and duties regarding current litigation or litigation that's likely to be filed. But this provision does not apply to litigation that has already been concluded. And the attorney general recommends that the governing body would invoke this provision only because their legal counsel advises them to do it, because the purpose of this provision is to place governmental bodies who are parties or potential parties to litigation on an even footing

2:01:43 with private parties. The governing body should be able to engage in a private and candid discussion with counsel about legal issues raised by litigation.But remember, no final decision can be made in executive session. Any final decision must be made in an open session, and the media is permitted to attend these sessions. The only time the media can be excluded is if they are party to litigation being discussed, or if they are an employee, agent, or contractor of the news media organization that is party to litigation. So now I'm going to take a closer look at the hiring and employment-related provisions. First,

2:02:30 you'll see we also have administrative rules for this one, and these are in Division 40, because those executive session provisions have been part of the Ethics Commission jurisdiction for longer, but this provision is 192.660 sub 2, sub little A, that the governing body could meet in executive session to consider the initial hiring, the initial employment of a public officer, employee, staff member, or individual agent. And this has to be a person that the governing body has the specific authority to hire. This provision does not authorize decisions, deliberations, or discussions of other employment actions. So this does not cover performance evaluation or complaint or discipline or termination.

2:03:15 There are other provisions for those, and I'll be addressing those in a minute, but this also does not cover extending an employment contract. Now, when the governing body is considering hiring an attorney or an accountant or some individual who performs services on behalf of the public body in the capacity of an agent, they can hold an executive session to consider hiring that individual person. Sometimes that accountant or that attorney works for a firm or company. The governing body can only meet in executive session to consider hiring that person, not the firm they're already working for. And in order to hold a session under 192.660 sub 2,

2:04:02 sub little A, the governing body has to make sure they've taken some steps before they hold the session. And the multiple steps they have to take before they can hold this session are to advertise that vacancy and to adopt regular hiring procedures. Now, if the governing body is hiring a public officer, the governing body needs to provide the public with an opportunity to comment on filling this public officer's position. And that does not require that the public has a chance to comment on named candidates for the position before the executive session is held, but the public needs an opportunity to comment on filling this role. Now, if the governing body is hiring a chief executive officer, they need to make sure they have already adopted hiring standards,

2:04:50 criteria, and policy directives at a public meeting where the public had a chance to comment. And again, this provision can only be used to consider hiring a role that the governing body has that authority to hire for. Also, Public Meetings law is clear that the governing body can't use this provision to talk about filling an elected position that becomes empty or filling a vacancy on a public committee, commission, or advisory group, cannot talk about general employment policies, and cannot discuss compensation, salary, or benefits in this executive session. And of course, it is not permitted to make any final decision in the

2:05:37 executive session. The governing body must return to a public meeting to take any final action. So, we have another guide on our website, specifically about using this provision for hiring in executive session, showing what prerequisites are required depending on who the governing body is hiring for, and making sure that those prerequisites are completed with the reminder that the governing body can't discuss salary and compensation benefits in executive session under this provision. Now, I have two more provisions in this section, and both of the provisions I'm going to talk about next have a special prerequisite that's a special meeting notice issued to an affected person. So I'll talk about that more.

2:06:24 A governing body can hold an executive session to consider dismissal or disciplining of a public officer, employee, staff member, or agent, and they may hear complaints or charges brought against that person under 192.660 sub 2, sub little B. But to hold that session, the governing body is required by law to provide that affected person with a written notice of the session at least 24 hours before the session will be held and give them a meaningful opportunity to request an open hearing. Now, in the context of Public Meetings law, this means open session. If that person requests it to be held as an open session, then it has to be held as an open session. And I'll go into a lot more detail about what needs to be included in that written

2:07:10 notice in a minute, but there's another provision with the same requirement of, by law, issuing that written notice to the affected person at least 24 hours before the executive session. And in that notice have to include directions on how someone could request that open hearing, not just that they are allowed to request it, but how they would do so. Because the governing body may also convene an executive session to review and evaluate the job performance of a chief executive officer, other officers, employees, and staff. But just like with that discipline or dismissal provision, this provision, which is 192.660 sub 2, sub little I, only appliesIf that individual whose

2:07:57 performance is being reviewed and evaluated does not request an open hearing. So that person has to be provided with the written notice at least 24 hours in advance, giving them direction on how they can request that open hearing. If they request it to be an open hearing, has to be an open session. So now I'll take a closer look at everything that needs to be on that written notice. This is by law, in order to provide that affected individual with a meaningful opportunity to request an open hearing. The governing body is required to provide them with a written notice of the executive session before the meeting, and the written notice must be provided at least 24 hours or one business day in advance, and it has to include the name of the governing body who is considering

2:08:42 this matter, and the time, date, and location of the meeting, and the purpose for which the governing body is holding this executive session. Is this discipline or dismissal? Is this performance evaluation? Also, information on how that public official can request that open hearing. Now, Public Meetings Law is specific about certain things it requires. There's other things that it doesn't address. So Public Meetings Law is specific about these requirements of the notice, and that's what Public Meetings Law says has to be included. And this is going to be specifically about that person that the governing body specifically has authority to

2:09:29 hire, fire, hear complaints about, and evaluate the performance of, specifically that kind of affected person. Now, the provision requires an open hearing if the involved person requests it. Public Meetings Law doesn't on its own require an adversarial hearing, just that it is held as an open session. This is where other laws and rules may apply. And so other questions about the particulars of this kind of session, that's important to check with legal counsel because Public Meetings Law doesn't say anything else about the affected person and doesn't specify what they need to do at the meeting. Public Meetings Law

2:10:15 doesn't on its own give them the right to postpone their hearing so that their lawyer can be there or to have some other kind of formal hearing. But other laws, contracts, or collective bargaining agreements may provide those rights. Public Meetings Law just says, make sure to issue this written notice to them at least 24 hours in advance, telling them the name of the governing body, the time, date, and location, the reason for convening, and how to request that open hearing. Public Meetings Law is clear that these hiring and employment provisions cannot be used to conduct a general evaluation of agency goals, operations, objectives, or directives to personnel about those goals, objectives, and operations and programs, and cannot be used to discuss compensation. So that includes salaries or

2:11:00 benefits. That must not be discussed or negotiated during an executive session held under these provisions for hiring and employment. So we have four provisions that relate to negotiations, and that starts with labor negotiations, real property, and trade and commerce. A governing body may hold an executive session to confer with their labor negotiator, and that is specifically to conduct deliberations with persons designated by the governing body to carry on labor negotiations, 192.660 sub 2 sub little D. This subsection allows the governing body to request members of the media to leave. And there's an additional provision about labor negotiations. It has its own subfield, 192.660 sub 3, and it states that labor consultations are to be conducted in an open meeting

2:11:48 unless the negotiators for both parties, for the governing body and the employees, request that negotiations are conducted in executive session. Labor negotiations that are held in executive session under this provision are not subject to notification requirements listed elsewhere in Public Meetings Law. Also, a governing body may convene an executive session to discuss negotiation of real property transactions with the individuals the governing body designated for the purpose of negotiating those real property transactions. And this is sub 2 sub little E. So the governing body is allowed to discuss negotiations with the person they designated to conduct the actual negotiations. And real property transactions here, not limited to just buying or selling real property, but negotiating

2:12:33 a particular long-term lease transaction would be included in this provision. This provision would not include having a discussion of the public body's long-term space needs or general policies concerning lease sites. This executive session must be limited to discussions of negotiations regarding specific real property, and the board can come to consensus about whether they're going to accept an offer, but they are still required to conduct a vote or take any final action in a public meeting. Now, last in this section, sub 2 sub little G, allows the preliminary negotiations involving matters of trade or commerce to be conducted in executive session when the governing body is in competition with

2:13:18 governing bodies in other states or nations. And that phrase, other states or nations, is the key phrase here. Other nations would include federally recognized tribes. This provision does not apply when the governing body is in competition with other governing bodies in Oregon. Now, just a few more provisions for you in security and safety. Some of these provisions have been part of Public Meetings Law for a long time, and then some relatively recent, sub 2 sub K, considering matters relating to school safety or a plan that responds to safety threats made toward a schoolSub two, sub little N, governing bodies can meet in executive session to review or approve programs that

2:14:03 relate to the security of a broad range of topics, including security programs for data transmissions, security programs for telecommunication systems, and that includes cellular, wireless, or radio systems, security programs for generating, storing, or transferring electricity, hazardous substances, gas, petroleum, sewage, or water. And under this same provision, executive sessions could be held to discuss the security programs of nuclear-powered thermal plants and nuclear installations, and the transportation of radioactive material to or from a thermal plant or installation. Now, separately, as of 2023, under sub two, sub little P, the governing body can meet to consider matters

2:14:48 relating to cybersecurity infrastructure and responses to cybersecurity threats. And also new in 2023, to consider matters relating to the safety of the governing body, specifically discussions of the safety of the governing body and their staff and volunteers, and specifically, matters relating to the security of the public body's facilities and meeting spaces. So, all those four categories, in presenting those, the hope is those are the most common provisions that a governing body would use to hold an executive session. We do have on our reference guide some less frequent provisions, so if you're consulting our guide and you see a provision that you think your

2:15:36 governing body might need to use in a meeting that's coming up soon, that's a great time to give our office a call before the meeting happens, or to reach out to legal counsel regarding any other laws and rules that may be regulating your meetings as well. But definitely, if you're curious about something with executive session, give our office a call a few days before that meeting. Now, a note about the media. Members of the news media are generally allowed to attend an executive session. Media can be asked to leave the room when the executive session is being held for one of the following reasons: If the discussion in executive session is for the governing body to confer with their labor negotiator, if the executive session is being convened to discuss an

2:16:23 expulsion of an elementary or secondary school student, if an executive session is convened to review the confidential records of a student. And then members of the news media who are party to litigation or are an employee agent or contractor of the news media organization that is party to litigation must be excluded from an executive session held to discuss litigation with legal counsel. So it is governing body to confer with their labor negotiator to discuss the expulsion of an elementary or secondary school student, to review the confidential records of a student, or

2:17:08 members of the news media, or contractors of news media, or agents of news media, or employees who are party to that litigation. So our reference guide looks like this. Before I move on to address the enforcement of public meetings law, and also the grievance process, I do need to address a couple of situations that board members may find themselves in in an executive session, and some actions they need to take to show they're complying with public meetings law, if things are not quite going according to plan. So what governing body members need to do as individuals to show they're complying with public meetings law. First scenario, your governing body enters executive session and the conversation moves

2:17:53 beyond the scope of what was cited as the reason to hold this meeting in executive session. So the important thing to remember here is that governing body members are individually responsible for making sure that public meetings law is being followed. So if a governing body member is in an executive session and realizes the topics that are being discussed are not authorized for this session, or they're outside of the scope that is specifically permitted by this statutory provision, then that governing body member needs to state their objection to discussing this unauthorized topic. And that's where you can work to get the governing body back on track. If everyone gets back on track, that's great.

2:18:38 But if that discussion continues to be on an unauthorized topic, that's where governing body members need to take some individual actions to show on the record how they're complying with public meetings law. So those actions are, first, to announce on the record you're leaving the executive session, and then the third action, super important, is to leave. That may feel counterintuitive, leaving the room knowing that the governing body is not following the law, but it's important to have documentation of your actions for the record to provide that proof, and then to protect yourself from any penalty that could be imposed if a complaint were to be filed about a matter such as

2:19:24 this. So in that situation, a case would be opened on each governing body member, and that's where the commission considers the actions of each individual governing body member. Governing body members are independently responsible for making sure that the governing body follows public meetings law. Any penalties that are issued are issued to persons independently, not to the governing body as a whole. Now, the second scenario, you realize you have a conflict of interest on an agenda item, and you are already in the executive sessionI mentioned if governing body members have a conflict of interest, they are required to make a public disclosure of their conflict of interest

2:20:10 before going into executive session. Conflicts of interest, everything about what they are is part of Oregon Government Ethics Law, and that is about that financial transparency. So all the details of conflict of interest, I definitely recommend our other resources on ethics law, but the point here for Public Meetings Law is you have to make that public announcement of your conflict of interest. So what do you have to do if you find yourself already in the executive session and you haven't publicly declared your conflict of interest? First, stop the meeting, let the members of your governing body know you have a conflict of interest. Then you have two options. Either you need to leave that meeting before the governing body starts any discussion on the matter, or your governing body can table that agenda item for a future meeting where you can

2:20:57 properly declare your conflict during the open portion of the meeting. And that's regardless of whether you have an actual conflict or a potential conflict of interest. So if you'd like more information about conflicts of interest, or if you think you might need to make a disclosure at an upcoming meeting and you're not sure what to say, that's a great time to give our office a call a few days before that meeting. You can also attend government ethics law training through our office, and we've got resources on our website. So that's my section on executive sessions. And I do have that poll question for you, choosing variety of options. So I'm happy to address executive session questions later, but if we're

2:21:42 ready to poll, that'd be great. Before entering executive session to evaluate performance, discipline or dismiss, or to hear complaints or charges against an individual, a written notice must be given to the affected individual. What are the requirements of that written notice? Choose all that apply. A, sent at least 24 hours in advance, B, identifies the governing body, C, gives them the option to have an attorney present, D, tells them the reason for convening an executive session, E, provides how to request an open session, F, identifies the date, time, and location of the meeting, G, sent by official mail. Excellent. So I have good news here. You don't have to send it to them by official mail, and Public Meetings Law itself doesn't specifically give them the option to have

2:22:27 the attorney present. But those are both situations where other laws and rules may apply. What Public Meetings Law says is all of those that are identified by those light blue bubbles, that's what has to be in that written notice. Now I'm going to address the grievance and complaint process, and then I'll talk about the enforcement of Public Meetings Law. So the grievance and complaint process applies to all the provisions of Public Meetings Law, not just the executive session provisions. This process has been happening since September 2023. It requires individuals to file a grievance with the public body before they can file a complaint with OGEK to allege that a violation has occurred of not just the executive session provisions, but any provision of Public Meetings Law. So those requirements also

2:23:15 require the public body to provide some information. The public body is required to let the public know when, where, how, and to whom those grievances can be filed with the public body. And we have an administrator rule that specifically addresses this. It's in Division 50. The public body needs to post on their website the name and contact information of the person who will receive those written grievances, and what are the regular business hours during which they will accept those in-person written grievances. If the public body doesn't have a designated person, then a grievance may be submitted to the public body's chief administrative officer or to the chair of the governing body. And if the public body doesn't have a website, they need to

2:24:02 give notice of who is this person to contact and what hours they accept grievances, the same way they give notice of public meetings. And public bodies are required to accept grievances that are filed in person during business hours, by first-class mail, by email, and any other way they deem appropriate. Now, I'm going to address what the grievance filing process looks like from the point of view of a person who thinks a governing body violated Public Meetings Law, and then address what the public body is required to do. First, someone thinks the governing body violated Public Meetings Law. These are the steps they have to take in the law. Before someone can file a complaint with OGEK alleging there was a Public

2:24:47 Meetings Law violation, they're required to file the written grievance with the public body first. And that means if someone believes a Public Meetings Law violation occurred, they must submit a written grievance to that public body, stating the facts and circumstances of the alleged violation, and they have to submit the written grievance to the public body within 30 calendar days of the date that the alleged violation occurred. And then they have to give the public body 21 calendar days to respond to that written grievance. So in both settings there, that's calendar days they're submitting a written grievance. Now, here's how the public body is required to respond. Public Meetings Law names that the public body responds to grievances, not the governing body.

2:25:33 The public body receives a written grievance from a person alleging its governing body may have violated Public Meetings Law. The public body must provide a written response to that person within 21 calendar days. Now, their response has to acknowledge that they received the grievance, and acknowledging they received the grievance, they can do that three main ways. Each is described specifically in the law, so I'll go into that in a couple slidesWhen the public body is sending their response back to that person, they need to send OGEC a copy of the written response and a copy of the written grievance they received at the same time they're sending that response back to the person. So when the public body sends that information to OGEC, they can send it to

2:26:18 [email protected]. And on our website, in that section on the homepage where it's Public Meetings Law with an image showing a list of items for Public Meetings Law, there's a link that specifically says Public Meetings Law, and it'll describe this process as well with that email address. So the three ways that the public body can acknowledge they received the grievance are also specified in the law. Three main ways. Going into a little more detail on each one. First, the public body could respond by denying the facts and circumstances alleged in the grievance, describing the public body's version of those facts and circumstances, and explaining why they don't

2:27:03 violate Public Meetings Law. Or the public body could admit to the facts and circumstances that are alleged in the grievance, but deny that those facts and circumstances violated Public Meetings Law. Now, the third option for responding has more steps because it involves the public body admitting to the facts and circumstances alleged in the grievance and admitting those facts and circumstances violated Public Meetings Law. So this response has to include more information that's going to be different depending on what the public body is admitting to. And it is specifically described in the law what those different things can be. In the example of it being a decision of some

2:27:51 kind, the law says that the public body has to explain the steps the public body's going to take to cure that violation. So in the example of a decision, how it's described in the law is the public body can either rescind the decision that the governing body took that violated Public Meetings Law, or the governing body can hold a public meeting within 45 days of the original decision and acknowledge that, yes, this original decision violated Public Meetings Law, a good reason exists for the governing body not to rescind their decision, and here's how the governing body is going to modify their practices to make sure they don't violate Public Meetings Law in the future. Now, no matter how the public body responds

2:28:37 and sends the response back, sends all that material to OGEC, once that process has been completed, the person who filed the grievance can now file a complaint with OGEC. So after the 21 calendar days are over, that person can choose to submit a complaint to OGEC on Public Meetings Law. When someone is submitting a Public Meetings Law complaint, they must include documentation that they satisfied the mandatory prerequisites. The documentation has to include the copy of their written grievance and the copy of the public body's written response. Or the person could affirm that they did not receive a response in those 21 calendar days. But the law says that

2:29:22 if someone is filing a Public Meetings Law complaint and they do not satisfy the mandatory prerequisite, which is showing they followed the grievance process, then their complaint would be dismissed. Now, when properly filed Public Meetings Law complaints are brought to the Ethics Commission, OGEC can only accept signed complaints. For Public Meetings Law complaints, a case would be opened for each member of the governing body in preliminary review, only members of the governing body, not staff, and those cases would be consolidated at the preliminary

2:30:08 review phase and the investigative phase, unless one or more members of the governing body object to that consolidation. And at the point of matters coming before the Ethics Commission, that's where the commission themselves have the authority to make individual determinations. So- I'm sorry. Can I ask just one question? Because I'm kind of having a hard time following. You said that the grievance goes to the public body, the public body responds, and then if the steps are followed, then the complaint then goes to the OGEC naming specific persons on the governing body.

2:30:53 When does the public body inform the governing body that there's been a grievance against them? And does the complaint have to name individuals in it? So that's a great question. This goes into specifically the enforcement of the commission jurisdiction. So the grievance process is mandatory if an individual wants to file a Public Meetings Law complaint. Individuals can choose not to, but they have to submit documentation showing they've gone through the grievance process if they want to file a Public Meetings Law complaint.

2:31:38 Then if a matter is brought to the commission, that's where the commission makes, again, individual determinations regarding the case of each member of the governing body. So that is up to the commission, and the specifics of those communications and all of that stuff is in theThe Ethics Commission's operating authority, which is part of ethics law, you can see it cited here under 244.260. But the cases would be consolidated at the preliminary review phase and the investigative phase, unless one or more members of the governing body objected to that consolidation.

2:32:23 And this is where it is up to the Ethics Commission to make any individual determinations. They make individual determinations regarding the case of each member of the governing body, and only the commission can make any of those determinations. So they are the only ones who can determine if a violation has occurred. They are the ones who would determine what the sanctions for any violations would be. And I understand that there may be additional questions, but I do have just a very short amount of information left to share with you, including a couple more polls. So your public body has received a Public Meetings Law grievance. What is the public body required to do? Choose one answer. Options are, A, the public body is not required to do

2:33:10 anything. It is the governing body's responsibility. B, the public body needs to respond to the grievance within 21 days. C, the public body needs to respond to the grievance within 21 days and send a copy to OGEC. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Just make sure a copy gets sent to OGEC. Now, some information about the enforcement of Public Meetings Law. It is important for me to note that the Oregon Government Ethics Commission prioritizes education, and our commission recognizes the burdens that public officials who are volunteers are taking on to serve their communities.

2:33:55 Most often, our commission may issue a letter of education if they're making a finding of violation about something for Public Meetings Law. They may ask some board members to take additional training as part of that sanction for violations. Body members need to know that they could be assessed a financial penalty of up to $1,000 for a Public Meetings Law violation, and that is the maximum for a Public Meetings Law violation. Now, separate from the grievance process or any investigation by OGEC, there's a provision that governing body members need to be aware of that is specifically 192.680. This is about

2:34:42 lawsuits, and this is specifically about circuit court. So a person who's affected by a decision of a governing body can file a lawsuit in circuit court. That circuit court lawsuit must be filed within 60 calendar days of the alleged violation, and lawsuits that are filed under this provision, 192.680, that circuit court can void a governing body's decision or action. If someone files a complaint with OGEC, OGEC can't void decisions or actions that were taken by a governing body, but a circuit court can do that, and there's additional language in this provision, specifically that if the court were to determine intentional disregard of the law or willful misconduct by the

2:35:27 governing body, they may award the successful plaintiff to have their attorney fees paid. So that would mean that the governing body or the public body would have to pay those attorney fees for the plaintiff who's successful. That means governing body members may be jointly liable to the governing body or the public body for the amount that is paid. Now, all of these provisions are important to know. It's also important to know that before the meeting happens, you can reach out to OGEC to get advice. And those complaints, investigations, and sanctions,

2:36:14 again, the Ethics Commission prioritizes education, but these different kinds of advice are important resources. And as I mentioned earlier, the commission advisory opinion, which some governing bodies have reached out to OGEC to request specifically on Public Meetings Law situations. You can look at those on our website. They are searchable. Those commission advisory opinions, they have a statutory amount of time to get that opinion ready for you, so that can take some time, but we definitely recommend that as something. So now I'm going to talk about the training requirement of who is required to take a Public Meetings Law training.

2:37:02 So the law says if the governing body has total expenditures of a million dollars or more in a fiscal year, each governing body member needs to take a Public Meetings Law training at least once during the member's term of office. So we have lots of board members who serve on multiple governing bodies, and if someone is serving on two boards with that same requirement, they can attend one training, satisfy the requirement for both of their positions, as long as when they take that training, they're serving both those terms. But if they're reelected to the board again, or they're appointed to another board that has that same requirement, then they need to take the training again during that next term of office. And it is each governing body member's responsibility to maintain a record of the training they viewed or attended, and that includes the date they viewed or

2:37:49 attended the training and the name of the entity that provided the training. That way, they can truthfully certify that they completed the training if the Ethics Commission requested it. And anyone who serves on a governing body in Oregon is encouraged to attend a Public Meetings Law training, even if it's not required by this expenditure threshold. Now, I have more details at the end about the certificates that board members will receive for attending tonight's training, and that provides that certification of completing the training.So, tonight we have addressed your resources and definitions, public attendance, accommodations, meeting notices, recordings, executive session provisions, and the grievance process, and the enforcement, and the training

2:38:35 requirement. I understand that you may have some questions, but I also have one more poll for you, and it has two questions. This question, choose all that apply. What resources are available to analyze if a governing body follows the provisions of public meetings law? Options are A, OGAC, B, Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual, C, your governing body's counsel, D, your association, E, none, you're on your own. Now, all your responses are anonymous and no chart will show up for the final question after this one. Thank you so much for hosting me for the training tonight. I hope that no one feels they're on their own after attending the training.

2:39:21 Now, I never see how anyone answers this question, but you'll notice this question has a little bit different options than before. After this training, how confident do you feel in your knowledge to follow public meetings law? Options are A, very confident, B, confident, C, somewhat confident, D, unsure, but I know where to go when I have questions, E, not confident, but this was helpful, or F, this training did not help.

2:40:11 Now, all of you board members, you participated in the full live training today, and I have a chart where you can provide me with your emails and how you'd like your name to appear on the certificate. You're going to receive a couple more emails from me. So, as you have registered, this was not a webinar, you're going to get two more emails. They're going to go to the email that you provide to me for your certificate and for your resources. So tomorrow morning, you'll get that email with resources, and then early next week you'll get the PDF copy of your certificate. It's going to have your name, the date you took the training, and our executive director's signature. And because it's a PDF, check your junk or spam folder if you don't see it in your inbox by next Tuesday.

2:40:58 It's going to come from our training inbox, and again, it will have your name, but it is a PDF. So if that PDF doesn't make it to your inbox, you can always email our training inbox, and we'll make sure that we get that sent to you directly. Really appreciate you hosting me tonight. And I know that you have questions. This is where you can contact us during business hours by phone if you'd like. I also have business cards, and I appreciate your time. Thank you for the time that you've given me tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. So do we have time for more questions or did you- That's up to your board. Okay. I-

2:41:44 I have a few, but is that all right? I have time. Okay. A general question I think I heard was, in essence, for lack of a better term, the statute of limitations that any violations have to be reported, I think, within 30 days, I heard, and then 60 days regarding if it's related to a civil lawsuit. Is that- So, the circuit court lawsuits must be filed within 60 days. A grievance process is required to be completed in order for a complaint to be filed, and grievance has to be filed within 30 calendar days. So is the only way for,

2:42:29 if there is a violation, say there's something the board haven't-- There was a problem with meeting minutes. So it wouldn't be a violation if those minutes were more than 30 days old before it came to somebody's attention? I'm trying to understand. That's a question about how the law applies, and that's an area where multiple parts of law are going to come into it. But ultimately, because the authority of our commission is to open matters, and the commission doesn't have jurisdiction over public records, it's all going to come down to the particular situation of how that grievance process is filed and how

2:43:17 that matter then does or does not become judged to appear in commission jurisdiction, and then that's the discretion of the ethics commission. Okay. For executive session, there was talk about the notice. Do we have to include a notice about the availability of interpreter for executive session? Could media need an interpreter or something? Do we have to include that? So, executive sessions are a kind of public meeting, so the same noticing requirements are going to apply to executive session meetings that apply to regularly scheduled meetings, special meetings, and emergency meetings.

2:44:03 So yes, we should notice if somebody needs an interpreter. Okay. You hit on, there's supposed to be minutes for executive session. Yes. But there was much more detail about minutes for a regular session. Yes. Are there requirements for what needs to be in minutes from executive session versus, and what... minutes are confidential versus what goes to the public for minutes for executive session? The short answer is yes. The law specifies certain things about the minutes of executive sessions. The law specifies that the minutes of executive sessions shall be kept in accordance with the subsection that requires the governing body has to

2:44:50 keep the minutes of all their meetings. But the specifics of what can be disclosed and what can be excluded is going to come back down to... So let's see. There's some phrasing for... It's in Oregon Revised Statute 192.650 Sub 2. So I can read out the entire section for you, or I can- 192.650 Sub 2? Yeah. Okay. So we need to refer to that for what's- For the- And- ... description of what those categories are. And again, because public records law is not part of

2:45:36 ethics commission jurisdiction, specifically I would go to ORS 192.650 Sub 2. And then we have an administrative rule, OAR 199-050-0060. Okay. Sounds like Bob has a question related to that. Well, we approve the minutes from our regular meetings, but I don't think we've ever approved the minutes of our executive session. We don't actually see anything from that other than the- Well, we're responsible for making sure they're accurate, so we know how I think about that process. You said for executive session, or not executive session, but when we're hiring the CEO, we have to discuss the

2:46:21 criteria in public- Mm-hmm ... where there is the opportunity for public comment in that meeting. Yes. So does that public comment have to happen after our discussion of the criteria or can it be before? Because typically we have public comment at the beginning of a meeting with agenda topics, and so in the way we typically run our meetings, the public would not comment on our discussion or deliberations about the criteria for a- Okay. So. So it sounds like that's the matter of the meeting, and we do have an administrative rule that specifically addresses this. I think that's also a useful question to

2:47:07 address with legal counsel because the matter of what is the form of adopting the standards and criteria and the position goals, and whether those are written materials that could be provided to the public beforehand as part of meeting materials for a public meeting, that's the kind of thing to address with legal counsel for that public meeting where the public has the opportunity to comment- Okay ... and to comment on that stuff. And so that's in 199-040-0027. Okay. And just two more. One, you talked about media being excluded from an executive session if they're a party to litigation. Yes. You said must be. So I didn't know if

2:47:56 are individual board members responsible for making sure that whatever litigation is currently with the district to know whether or not a media member to be excluded. You know what I'm- Yes, that's a great question, and the information that I have is that it says must. Okay. But I don't have more details about what that would look like for... Public meetings law doesn't specify what the litigation is. Okay. Last question, I think, talked about the grievance to the public body notifying that we have to notify OGEIC when that grievance comes in, and I assume,

2:48:44 again, that's individual board members' responsibility to make sure that you are notified. So theoretically- With the grievance process, that's something interesting. So grievance process specifically, and this is in 199-050-0070 Sub 3. So 0070 is the rule that describes the grievances and responsibilities in more detail, and public meetings law names that the public body responds to the grievance, not the governing body. Okay. So the governing body is not responsible for that notice to OGEIC.

2:49:31 Oh, I understand the question. Okay. That part of the law, these things are fitting together in what the responsibility of the person who wants to be a complainant is of collecting and showing the information, and the public body showing OGEIC, "This is what's happening," and that's what's described in the rules. The question of the overall responsibility of the governing body members, whether they're individually responsible the same way as for public meetings law or not, is not something that I have more detail to elaborate- Okay ... for you on.

2:50:16 Okay. That's all. Because what comes of the grievance is then the matter of something before the ethics commission. Does that- No. Mine was specific that when we get the grievance, we're supposed to notify the complainant and OGEIC- Yes ... of that, and so my question is: Who's responsible for doing- Yes ... the notice to- The public- ... you guys The public body responds to the matter. The public body responds. The public body is going to report. Okay, so- The public body, not the governing body ... so the board members are not responsible, so individual board members are not responsible for reporting, making sure that goes to OEC?

2:51:02 This part of the law specifically calls out that the public body responds. Okay. Yeah. When it comes to executive session, and it has been a thing where it's been recorded, is there a permit that's needed for a recording to take place in executive session? Um- Is there a what? I'm doing- A permit. A permit? Uh-huh. Yeah. Do you have to fill out a permit to have a recording in executive session? That's a great question, so maybe- I did a training somewhere, and someone said that, and I'm like, "Who said that?

2:51:49 Where was it?" Public records and the retention of records, that's going to be in public records law, which is outside of OEC jurisdiction. What public meetings law requires is that the governing body keep minutes or a sound, video, audio or... Audio is sound, I'm sorry. A sound, video, or digital recording- Mm-hmm ... of all their meetings. And that includes executive sessions because an executive session is a type of public meeting. Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm sorry, I thought you had said that it was required to have written minutes of the executive session. I didn't hear.

2:52:35 So the requirements for keeping minutes for executive sessions, that minutes are kept is the same as the requirement for any other public meeting, and that is that the governing body's required to keep documentation of their meetings in one of the following forms: written minutes or a sound, video, or digital recording. Okay. Yep, so I did have a question. If this body were to want to get together for a meeting other than decision-making and deliberation, let's say we

2:53:21 wanted to do a team-building exercise or a group counseling exercise or something where we're not debating any upcoming issues, but we're just getting to know each other, working through whatever. Is that a public meeting? Is a public meeting required for that? That's a great question. Because it's more training than it is... So I hear you making an argument to me. It's not an argument that I can respond to. That's in the authority of the ethics commission to determine,

2:54:06 and in the attorney general's public records and meetings manual, they do include a detailed frequently asked questions short answer section. They include detail, but they are blunt about the kinds of gatherings. So I would definitely recommend that, but also for guidance about things that are in the commission jurisdiction that haven't happened yet, the governing body can reach out to OEC for detailed written advice describing detailed future scenario. Okay. But then the requirement is to follow the commission's advice. Sure. So I recommend what the attorney general has said about

2:54:53 circumstances similar to what you're describing to me. Thank you. I have one question. You talked about the criteria or process regarding complaints and grievances. Okay, does that also apply to individual board members? So either board member to board member or staff to board members? So the responsibilities of what the governing body's actions and non-actions are, is that- You talked about the right to declare the complaint or grievance be heard in open session. Oh, for the executive session to the-

2:55:39 Not in an executive session. A complaint or a grievance is filed, and as a board member, we're not officially an employee. So does the same criteria apply to individual board members if they're the recipients of a complaint or grievance? Oh, I'm sorry. You are specifically asking about the provisions that the governing body would use to hear complaints or charges against a person in executive session, and then that person receives the notice, and they can request an open session? So what it would come down to

2:56:25 for whether board members have the authority to do that is whether board members have that authority over each other in their documentation and their charter. Some boards do, some boards don't. So it'll go back to... And we have commission advisoryletters and opinions that specifically refer to this that goes back to the definition of a public officer and how the governing body members are defined in that way, if that gives them that authority to hear complaints or charges against each other. It's going to go back to how the governing body members' roles are defined and

2:57:12 what authority they have over each other. That might ultimately be a legal opinion to review the charter? Um- Or is that an OGECH question? So, you can consult an opinion that was issued to DeFreest that's specifically about public officer that'll explain what is included in the question. But outside of OGECH's opinion saying how it can be done, that's going to go back to what the

2:57:57 governing body's legal counsel advises about what the charter says or doesn't say. Might it be something that we could put in our board policies if it was something that we felt strongly about? There's been some murkiness around that, and it was complicated by the fact that there wasn't any clear guidance seemingly from anybody or any entity. So, I think if it's absent, then that may be something the board wants to look at. Thank you. I have one last question. Just talking about all that, if a

2:58:44 board member was to file a complaint, do they have to abstain from... Well, wait. I guess it would just go straight to OGECH. It would never come back to a board. The public body responds to the grievance- Mm-hmm ... not the governing body. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you. All right. Any other comments or questions? Hearing none, I'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting at, wow, 8:00.