Proposed Ordinance Not Attached to the Amended Agenda
Greetings:
An agenda and an Amended Agenda were prepared. A proposed amendment to an ordinance was not attached and was not made available to the public at least 24 hours before the meeting. The meeting is tonight. The proposed amended ordinance was emailed to Council earlier this date. My initial advise was that Council could not consider, discuss and take possible action on an item in the abstract (i.e. the actual proposed amended ordinance had not been provided to the Council). Under these circumstances may the Council now vote on the proposed amended ordinance?
Thank you.
Michael T. Beason, OBA #18535
City Attorney - Altus
509 S. Main St.
Altus, Oklahoma 73521
Good question. This walks a fine line under the Open Meeting Act on the issue of whether there was Council decision making outside of the meeting. However, if the original ordinance was properly posted for the meeting, then certainly Council may make amendments to the Ordinance on the floor at the meeting prior to voting. Those floor amendments may or may not contain the recommendations of the amended ordinance that his now being circulated. Great care should be taken to make sure a majority of the Council has not been discussing the proposed ordinance amendments prior to the actual meeting, as this could be a violation of the Open Meeting Act.
Procedurally, I do not think you can include with the Agenda posting a version of the Ordinance that does not appear on the Agenda at the time the meeting is held. So, I do not think you can substitute the new version prior to the meeting, but certainly amendments to the original version that was posted can be made at the open public meeting. That would be my perspective.
Jeff Bryant
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Jeff H Bryant
Director of Legal Services
Associate General Counsel
jbryant@omag.orgmailto:jbryant@omag.org
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From: Oama oama-bounces@lists.imla.org On Behalf Of Michael Beason
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 2:18 PM
To: oama@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Oama] Proposed Ordinance Not Attached to the Amended Agenda
Greetings:
An agenda and an Amended Agenda were prepared. A proposed amendment to an ordinance was not attached and was not made available to the public at least 24 hours before the meeting. The meeting is tonight. The proposed amended ordinance was emailed to Council earlier this date. My initial advise was that Council could not consider, discuss and take possible action on an item in the abstract (i.e. the actual proposed amended ordinance had not been provided to the Council). Under these circumstances may the Council now vote on the proposed amended ordinance?
Thank you.
Michael T. Beason, OBA #18535
City Attorney - Altus
509 S. Main St.
Altus, Oklahoma 73521
