The Oklahoma Bar Journal November 2022

member sends an email regarding business of the public body to the other members or even responds with “reply all” to such emails. Municipal attorneys, and all attor neys representing public bodies, should be vigilant both prior to and after scheduled meetings to prevent members from congregat ing, discussing and creating an illegal meeting. Four types of meetings are addressed under the OMA: regu larly scheduled meetings, special meetings, emergency meetings and continued or reconvened meetings. For regularly scheduled meetings, §311 of the OMA requires that notice of all meetings scheduled for the following year be filed with the municipal clerk no later than Dec. 15 of each year. Such notice must include the date, time and place of each meeting, and the meeting time and date may only be changed with 10 days’ notice. In addition to regularly sched uled meetings, a public body may hold a special meeting after giving 48 hours’ notice of the date, time and place of the meeting. Notice of the special meeting must be given in writing, in person or by telephone to the municipal clerk as well as those who have submitted written requests to receive notice of a meeting. 5 New business is not permitted at special meetings. 6 Reconvened or continued meetings are governed by §311(A) (11) of the OMA, which provides that only matters contained on the original agenda may be discussed. Notice of such a meeting, like reg ularly scheduled and special meet ings, must be given. Care should be taken by the public body’s attorney to ensure that discussion and action by the body do not exceed the boundaries of the orig inal meeting. When the original BASICS OF THE OMA

Four types of meetings are addressed under the OMA: regularly scheduled meetings, special meetings, emergency meetings and continued or reconvened meetings.

meeting is recessed, the time, date and place of the meeting to be reconvened must be announced. An emergency meeting of a public body may be held if needed. An emergency sufficient to justify a meeting is defined as a situation involving injury to persons or injury and damage to public or personal property or immediate financial loss when the time requirements for public notice of a special meeting would make such procedure impractical and increase the likelihood of injury or damage or immediate financial loss. 7 Prior to an emer gency meeting, a public body must only give notice that is reasonable under the circumstances, but it must be given as soon as possible per §311(A)(13) of the OMA. A public body must post notice and the meeting’s agenda in prom inent view for a regular or special meeting. 8 The 24-hour period excludes weekends and holidays, the agenda must be visible the entire 24 hours in advance 9 and it must be posted at the principal office or at the meeting location. 10 In addition, a public body must post regularly scheduled meetings on its website, but this does not substitute for the posting require ments above under §311. 11

Equally as important as posting adequate notice is the wording of a public body’s agenda. Section 311(B) of the act requires that the agenda contain sufficient informa tion for the public to identify the items of business to be discussed and resolved. In Haworth Bd. of Ed. v. Havens , 12 the court stated, “Agendas must be worded in plain language, directly stating the pur pose … The language used should be simple, direct, and comprehen sible to a person of ordinary edu cation and intelligence.” Simply stated, a public body cannot dis cuss an item or take action upon it if the item is not on the agenda. Items must be sufficiently detailed to give a reasonable person infor mation regarding what specifically will be discussed and voted upon at the meeting. Descriptors such as “Fire Chief Report” are likely insufficient and require additional details describing what informa tion will be covered in the report. While a citizen might be unin terested in the fire department’s latest response statistics, the same citizen may very much care that a new fire station has been pro posed for construction and may wish to attend the meeting where the item is discussed. Any discussion of the OMA would be remiss not to include the

18 | NOVEMBER 2022

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL