As of July 1, state boards and commissions now have the go-ahead to hold more meetings by electronic hookups.
Under the new FOIA rules, state boards will be required to have only one totally face-to-face meeting per year. Electronic participation will be allowed in all others. Boards previously were allowed to conduct no more than 25 percent of their meetings by video or teleconferencing.
Looser rules enacted for electronic meetings as an experiment in 1999 required only that a quorum be present in the state.
Under the new law, a quorum will have to be present at the primary meeting location. The public must have access to any sites where a public body member is participating electronically.
Public notice of electronic meetings is reduced from 30 days to seven days. The notice must identify each location where meeting participants will be. Also, the notice must list a phone number where participants at remote locations can call in to get reconnected to the meeting should they lose the line of communication.
Minutes of the electronic meetings will be required to specify which members tuned in from remote locations, and roll-call votes must be recorded. Both members of the public body, as well as members of the public, participating electronically will have the same opportunities for addressing the public body as those in attendance at the primary location.
Public bodies that use the new rules must also file reports of their use with the FOI Advisory Council.
Local government must still meet in person; legislation to extend the electronic meetings privilege to regional and local public bodies was shelved by the 2005 General Assembly.
Lynchburg’s News and Advance called it “only practical” to allow members of state boards who would have to drive long distances to hook up electronically with the meeting.
But there’s no reason for a local governing body to get together through the magic of electronics, it said. “Every member of Lynchburg’s City Council, for example, can get to City Hall within about the same time – a matter of minutes. Face-to-face meetings open to the public should remain the standard for them.”
A tougher policy call involves governmental entities that cover a large geographical area, such as regional jail authorities or transportation commissions that draw their members from a number of counties and cities. The FOI Advisory Council set up a work group to consider whether to allow e-meetings for regional units, perhaps starting with a pilot project in one region.