2006-2007 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury Report State of the Minutes: an Inquiry Into the Availability,

Conclusions 1

• CL1 Page 3
  The video recordings and printed transcripts of the City Council meetings answer the complainant’s concern about the lack of detail available to the public. The procedures the City Clerk has developed for the retention of the video recordings, printed transcripts, and synopses give the public the ability to access information detailing the decisions of the City Council. The City Clerk has filled the personnel vacancies, which has resulted in substantial progress in resolving the backlog of official City Council Minutes. However, as of the beginning of April 2007, they are still not current. 3

Observations 1

• OB1 Page 2
  City Clerks can employ one of three types of minutes: Verbatim Minutes, Summary Minutes, or Action Minutes. Verbatim Minutes are an exact, complete written account of what occurred at a meeting. Verbatim Minutes are usually too costly for legislative bodies to produce. The traditional type of minutes recorded are known as Summary Minutes. Summary Minutes are similar to Verbatim Minutes in that they detail the kind of meeting, name of group, date and time of meeting, and participants. However, they do not provide a word-by-word account of the proceedings. They do provide an accurate summary of the proceedings, including a discussion of the topics, who said what, information presented, decisions made, and discussion of future actions. Motions made and votes tallied are recorded, along with the names and how they voted. Summary Minutes, while perhaps not as costly to produce as Verbatim Minutes, can be expensive and time consuming to produce. The Minutes of the City Council meetings currently being recorded by the City Clerk’s office are known as Action Minutes. Action Minutes are substantially less detailed than Summary Minutes. Action Minutes include the date, type of meeting, and the participants. They chronicle only the actions taken (i.e. consensus, motions, resolutions, ordinances, and summaries). They may or may not contain the names of the persons responsible for specific actions. The City Council memorializes its meetings by audio recordings, video recordings, laptop computer, and handwritten notes taken by the City Clerk and staff. The company that does the closed captioning for the televised meeting also prepares an unofficial transcript of the video recording. Administrative needs and timeliness necessitate the City Clerk’s preparation of a synopsis of the meeting. The synopsis reflects the action taken on each agenda item. The synopsis is prepared using the audio and video recordings, laptop computer notes, and handwritten notes. Synopses are usually available three days after a City Council meeting. Neither the transcripts nor the synopses are considered to be official documents and neither is approved by the City Council at subsequent meetings. Both the transcripts and the synopses are available to the public on the City Clerk’s website. Under California Government Code §§ 34090, 34090.5, and 34090.6, the video recordings, the audio recordings, the transcripts, and the synopses may be purged on a periodic basis. The City Clerk reports that, “Agendas, synopses, and meeting minutes are kept permanently, on paper and electronically. We also microfiche these records for vital storage off-site. The video files are stored indefinitely on a computer server and backed up on a regular basis.” 2 A survey of seventy-four agencies in Santa Clara County, taken by the Grand Jury in September 2006, found that ninety-five percent are keeping approved minutes. The remaining five percent are keeping only a synopsis of the meetings. Ninety-five percent of these agencies make their minutes available to the public. Not all seventy- four agencies surveyed post their minutes on a website. The average time to produce their minutes for approval is nineteen days. The issue of a ten-month backlog of unapproved, unavailable minutes was discussed with the City Clerk. In a letter to the Grand Jury, the City Clerk stated, “The Office of the City Clerk has been understaffed over the past year and there are currently two vacancies in the position of Legislative Secretary. Recording and preparing the minutes is the primary function of these critical positions.” The City responded to the City Clerk’s request for additional personnel by authorizing the filling of two full-time positions and hiring one temporary employee. These personnel are assigned to rectifying the issues of the minutes backlog and to maintaining the currency of the official Minutes. As of mid-March 2007, the official City Council Minutes were still not current.

No Responses Found 1

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.