By Bryan Nelson
At the last City Council meeting, we had a discussion about what the minutes should or should not include.
By the end of the night (after 11 p.m.), I played a YouTube video from Susan Leahy, MA, CSP, whose website is RobertsRulesMadeSimple.com, where she describes that City Council minutes are the details of the business that was handled in the meeting.
Leahy detailed five “Do’s and Don’ts” that should guide the city clerk as to what minutes should look like. She recommends that these are minutes, not seconds—meaning only high-level details should be included.
The minutes are a record of what was done in the meeting, not everything that was said by every single board member or constituent. Use the guide to record the action for each item of business.
Enter the exact wording as finally adopted: meeting minutes are historical as well as the legal record, so it is critically important to record every motion.
You must record all counted votes—who voted in the affirmative and who voted in opposition.
Do not include opinions or debate content. As the recording secretary, you are not a court stenographer that needs to list all the opinions and comments of board members.
The clerk’s job is to capture clearly the actions taken during the meeting, and individual comments and opinions are not relevant to the business decisions that the council will take, so don’t include them.
Don’t waste too much time approving minutes. This should move quickly so that you can get to the business at hand. Taking too much time on minutes means maybe council members need additional training on this matter.
Remember to keep the info specific and understandable, making sure that the motion is clear to approve, deny or move to a date certain, etc.
You can always go to YouTube for the City Council’s unedited version of meetings, and the clerk’s office also keeps an audio recording of each meeting.
Meeting minutes do not need to be complicated. Just as a side note, Orange County only lists speakers with no comment summary. If you have five minutes to spare, please go to YouTube and play Susan Leahy’s video for her unedited advice on taking minutes.
