City of Pleasant Valley, MO General Office Provisions

[1]

Editor's Note — Ord. no. 1909 §1, adopted July 21, 1997 repealed section 110.420 concerning "access to city hall after hours" with no replacement provisions. Former section 110.420 derived from ord. no. 1882 §§1 — 4, 3-20-97. Subsequently, at the editor's discretion, ord. no. 2712 was inserted herein.

[Ord. No. 2756 §1, 11-20-2006; Ord. No. 2775 §1, 5-7-2007]

All meetings, records and votes are open to the public, except the governmental body may close any meeting, record or vote relating to the following:

Legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public governmental body and any confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental body or its representatives and its attorneys. However, any minutes, vote or settlement agreement relating to legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public governmental body or any agent or entity representing its interests or activity on its behalf or with its authority, including any insurance company acting on behalf of the City as its insured, shall be made public upon final disposition of the matter voted upon; or upon the signing by the parties of the settlement agreement, unless, prior to final disposition, the settlement agreement is ordered closed by a court after a finding that the adverse impact to a plaintiff or plaintiffs to the action clearly outweighs the public policy considerations, however, the amount of any monies paid by, or on behalf of, the public governmental body shall be disclosed; provided however, in matters involving the exercise of the power of eminent domain, the vote shall be announced or become public immediately following the action on the motion to authorize institution of such a legal action. Legal work product shall be considered a closed record.

Lease, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefore. However, any minutes, vote or public record approving a contract relating to the lease, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body shall be made public upon execution of the lease, purchase or sale of the real estate.

Hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of particular employees of a public governmental body. However, any vote on a final decision, when taken by a public governmental body, to hire, fire, promote or discipline an employee of a public governmental body must be made available to the public with a record of how each member voted within seventy-two (72) hours of the close of the meeting where such action occurs, provided however, that any employee so affected shall be entitled to prompt notice before such decision is made available to the public.

Non-judicial mental or physical health proceedings involving identifiable persons, including medical, psychiatric, psychological or alcoholism or drug dependency diagnosis or treatment.

Testing and examination materials, before the test or examination is given or, if it is to be given again, before so given again.

Welfare cases of identifiable individuals.

Preparation, including any discussions or work product, on behalf of a public governmental body or its representatives for negotiations with employee groups.

Software codes for electronic data processing and documentation thereof.

Specifications for competitive bidding until either the specifications are officially approved by the public governmental body or the specifications are published for bid.

10.

Sealed bids and related documents until the bids are opened and sealed proposals and related documents or any documents related to a negotiated contract until a contract is executed or all proposals are rejected.

11.

Individually identifiable personnel records, performance ratings or records pertaining to employees or applicants for employment, except that this exemption shall not apply to the names, positions, salaries and lengths of service of officers and employees of public agencies once they are employed as such.

12.

Records that are protected from disclosure by law.

13.

Meetings and public records relating to scientific and technological innovations in which the owner has a proprietary interest.

14.

Confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental body and its auditor, including all auditor work product; however, all audit reports issued by the auditor are to be considered open records.

15.

Operational guidelines and policies developed, adopted or maintained by any public agency responsible for law enforcement, public safety, first response or public health for use in responding to or preventing any critical incident which is or appears to be terrorist in nature and which has the potential to endanger individual or public safety or health. Nothing in this exception shall be deemed to close information regarding expenditures, purchases or contracts made by an agency in implementing these guidelines or policies. When seeking to close information pursuant to this exception, the agency shall affirmatively state in writing that disclosure would impair its ability to protect the safety or health of persons and shall in the same writing state that the public interest in non-disclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the records. This exception shall sunset on December 31, 2008.

16.

Existing or proposed security systems and structural plans of real property owned or leased by a public governmental body and information that is voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity owning or operating an infrastructure to any public governmental body for use by that body to devise plans for protection of that infrastructure, the public disclosure of which would threaten public safety.

Records related to the procurement of or expenditures relating to security systems purchased with public funds shall be open.

When seeking to close information pursuant to this exception, the public governmental body shall affirmatively state in writing that disclosure would impair the public governmental body's ability to protect the security or safety of persons or real property and shall in the same writing state that the public interest in non-disclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the records.

Records that are voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity shall be reviewed within ninety (90) days of submission to determine if retention of the document is necessary in furtherance of a security interest. If retention is not necessary, the documents shall be returned to the non-public governmental body or destroyed.

This exception shall sunset December 31, 2008.

17.

Records that identify the configuration of components or the operation of a computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications network and would allow unauthorized access to or unlawful disruption of a computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications network of a public governmental body. This exception shall not be used to limit or deny access to otherwise public records in a file, document, data file or database containing public records. Records related to the procurement of or expenditures relating to such computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications network, including the amount of monies paid by or on behalf of a public governmental body for such computer, computer system, computer network or telecommunications network, shall be open.

18.

Credit card numbers, personal identification numbers, digital certificates, physical and virtual keys, access codes or authorization codes that are used to protect the security of electronic transactions between a public governmental body and a person or entity doing business with a public governmental body. Nothing in this Section shall be deemed to close the record of a person or entity using a credit card held in the name of a public governmental body or any record of a transaction made by a person using a credit card or other method of payment for which reimbursement is made by a public governmental body.

All records that may be closed hereby are declared and deemed closed records unless the governmental body votes to make them public.

Before closing a meeting to the public, a majority of a quorum of the governmental body must vote to do so in a public vote. The vote of each member of the governmental body on the question of closing the meeting or vote and the reason for closing the meeting by reference to a specific exception shall be announced at a public meeting and entered into the minutes.

The governmental body shall give notice of the time, date and place of a closed meeting and the reason for holding it by reference to a specific exception. The notice shall be the same as in Subsection (E) below. No other business may be discussed in a closed meeting that does not directly relate to the specific reason announced to close the meeting to the public. Public governmental bodies holding a closed meeting must close only an existing portion of the meeting facility necessary to house the members of the public governmental body in the closed session, allowing members of the public to remain to attend any subsequent open session held by the public governmental body following the closed session.

The governmental body shall give notice of the time, date, place and tentative agenda of each meeting. The notice shall be placed on the appropriate bulletin board at City Hall at least twenty-four (24) hours, exclusive of weekends and holidays, prior to the meeting. If an emergency makes it impossible to give twenty-four (24) hours' notice, the reason must be reflected in the minutes. Notice also shall be given to any representative of the new media who requests notice of a particular meeting.

Each meeting shall be held at a place reasonably accessible to the public and at a time reasonably convenient to the public, unless for good cause such a place or time is impossible or impractical. When it is necessary to hold a meeting on less than twenty-four (24) hours' notice or at a place that is not reasonably accessible to the public or at a time that is not reasonably convenient to the public, the nature of the good cause justifying that departure from the normal requirements shall be stated in the minutes.

A formally constituted subunit of a parent governmental body may conduct a meeting without notice during a lawful meeting of the parent governmental body, a recess in that meeting or immediately following that meeting, if the meeting of the subunit is publicly announced at the parent meeting and the subject of the meeting reasonably coincides with the subjects discussed or acted upon by the parent governmental body.

A public body shall allow for the recording by audiotape, videotape or other electronic means of any open meeting. A public body may establish guidelines regarding the manner in which such recording is conducted so as to minimize disruption to the meeting. No audio recording of any meeting, record or vote closed pursuant to the provisions of Section 610.021, RSMo., shall be permitted without permission of the public body; any person who violates this provision shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor.

Any member of a public governmental body who transmits any message relating to public business by electronic means shall also concurrently transmit that message to either the member's public office computer or the custodian of records in the same format. The provisions of this Section shall only apply to messages sent to two (2) or more members of that body so that, when counting the sender, a majority of the body's members are copied. Any such message received by the custodian or at the member's office computer shall be a public record subject to the exceptions above.

Fees for copying public records, except those records restricted under Section 32.091, RSMo., shall not exceed ten cents ($0.10) per page for a paper copy not larger than nine (9) by fourteen (14) inches with the hourly fee for duplicating time not to exceed the average hourly rate of pay for clerical staff of the public governmental body. Research time required for fulfilling records requests may be charged at the actual cost of research time. Based on the scope of the request, the public governmental body shall produce the copies using employees of the body that result in the lowest amount of charges for search, research and duplication time. Prior to producing copies of the requested records, the person requesting the records may request the public governmental body to provide an estimate of the cost to the person requesting the records. Documents may be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge when the public governmental body determines that waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the public governmental body and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.

Fees for providing access to public records maintained on computer facilities, recording tapes or disks, videotapes or films, pictures, maps, slides, graphics, illustrations or similar audio or visual items or devices and for paper copies larger than nine (9) by fourteen (14) inches shall include only the cost of copies, staff time, which shall not exceed the average hourly rate of pay for staff of the public governmental body required for making copies and programming, if necessary, and the cost of the disk, tape or other medium used for the duplication. Fees for maps, blueprints or plats that require special expertise to duplicate may include the actual rate of compensation for the trained personnel required to duplicate such maps, blueprints or plats. If programming is required beyond the customary and usual level to comply with a request for records or information, the fees for compliance may include the actual cost of such programming.