Livingston URA reviews new bylaws, conflict policy and limits on subcommittees; board agrees to consider a website microsite

City staff presented newly standardized bylaws and a board-and-commission handbook to the Livingston Urban Renewal Agency on July 22, emphasizing conflict-of-interest disclosure, quorum rules and the limits that Montana open‑meetings law places on committees and subcommittees.

Why it matters: The handbook and bylaws clarify what board members may do in private between meetings, when they must recuse themselves, and how subcommittees and one-on-one conversations can trigger open‑meetings obligations. Those rules affect how the URA will handle grant reviews, outreach and any work delegated outside a public meeting.

City Manager Grant Gager reviewed the packet and the new conflict-of-interest disclosure form and told the board the city commission asked staff to standardize bylaws across advisory bodies. He read the applicable state law on open meetings and emphasized the policy’s goal: "Public confidence in government is essential, and the city can help sustain it by establishing and enforcing rules to ensure the impartiality and honesty of officials in all public discussions, decisions, and transactions." He said the disclosure form (in the packet) must be submitted and that members should err on the side of caution when a relationship could create even an appearance of impropriety.

Gager walked the board through quorum and recusal mechanics: with six appointed members a meeting requires four members present to begin; for routine actions a majority of members present may act, but some items by statute or municipal code require a majority of the entire board. He cited Montana Code Annotated 2-3-203 to explain that committees or subcommittees appointed by a public body are also subject to open‑meetings law.

Board members asked how the rules affect real-world practices: whether two members can meet informally between meetings, whether a member must step off the dais during discussion as well as vote when recusing, and what constitutes an improper "work task" for a board member. Staff said two members may converse but warned that the same subject should not be discussed with a third member outside public meetings because that could constitute a quorum and trigger open-meetings rules. Staff also described an example where a board member who represented themselves as a city compliance agent on a site visit had crossed the line into administrative work that should be handled by staff.

On the question of subcommittees, staff advised that creating a subcommittee exposes that group to the state’s open‑meetings requirements; staff also noted the city’s practice of not generally using subcommittees for advisory boards because of the administrative and public-notice burden.

Website and consultant tasks: after the handbook discussion the board discussed creating a URA microsite to show projects, before-and-after photos and mapped project locations. Staff described options and estimated costs: "a microsite for an urban renewal agency that I worked for in the past was about $5,000 to create and about $5,000 a year to host," adding that those figures "have probably gone up" to around $6,000–$7,000. Board members moved to place a microsite design and the scope of work for the URA consultant, Brianne Downey, on the next meeting agenda for formal consideration.

Less critical / background: Staff encouraged members to submit disclosure forms that are in the packet. Staff offered to coordinate any website work with city web staff, noting that the city’s web platform already supports meeting documents, maps and project pages and that a URA microsite could be created as a themed microsite within the city’s existing platform.