Vermont House committee continues work on S.59, weighing site-visit, recording and hybrid-meeting exemptions

The House Committee on Government Operations & Military Affairs met virtually April 23 to continue work on S.59, a bill proposing multiple amendments to Vermont’s open meeting law, with legislative counsel and stakeholders guiding the committee request by request.

Committee members and counsel focused on several recurring questions: whether and how to exempt site inspections and field visits from hybrid- and recording-related requirements; whether municipalities may use third-party vendors to record meetings and where recordings must be posted; how executive-session notice language should read; and whether to add a specific executive-session basis for cybersecurity. No formal votes were taken; members directed staff and counsel to prepare revised draft language and comparative materials for future sessions.

Tucker Anderson, legislative counsel to the committee, summarized the bill’s current text and the requests submitted by stakeholders, saying the panel would “continue working through the requests” and walk through options for how proposed changes would “integrate into law.” Anderson briefed members on earlier decisions in Act 133 and on how S.59 alters timing for posting meeting recordings and minutes.

On site inspections and field visits, the committee heard three competing positions. The Secretary of State’s office recommended limiting any exemption to site inspections and field visits that are explicitly mandated by statute or that occur as part of quasi‑judicial proceedings, and the office urged drafting language that affirmatively bars taking testimony, admitting evidence or making decisions during excluded visits. The Vermont Housing Finance Authority proposed broader language that would cover gatherings that “include” a site inspection or field visit, which counsel warned could be read to exempt follow‑on business at another location and could raise access and Title 9 public‑accommodation concerns.

Vermont League of Cities and Towns representatives urged clarifying where recordings must be posted and suggested requiring recordings be posted to a municipal website if one exists, but allowing no duty where a municipality lacks a website. Anderson noted that S.59 as drafted moves the posting trigger to the posting of minutes on a designated site (generally five days after the meeting) and that some municipalities interpret a recording as satisfying minute requirements.

The committee discussed how the Public Records Act interacts with recordings and submitted documents. Anderson advised that confidential business information submitted as a document can be exempted under the PRA, but that a purely verbal discussion of otherwise confidential rates would not automatically be insulated from public disclosure. Lisa Loomis, who submitted written testimony, argued that “the public deserves to know the interest rate that the town will pay when the town borrows money in anticipation of taxes,” a point members raised while weighing whether to retain a proposed executive‑session basis for discussions about interest rates on publicly financed loans.

Members reviewed a request from the Vermont Access Network to add the phrase “shall record, or cause to record” to the recording duty to make explicit that municipalities may use third parties. Anderson said that legally the clarification is unnecessary because the duty applies to the municipal corporation, but that adding the language would not likely have unintended effects if the committee prefers clarity.

Committee members also considered a request from the Vermont Communications Union Districts and other multi‑municipality entities to permit electronic‑only meetings where a body includes five or more towns or two or more counties, with physical‑site access provided only on request. Counsel warned that language based only on size could sweep in many bodies (regional planning commissions, some school districts) unless narrowly tailored.

Other topics included adding a requirement to minutes that records the length of executive sessions; clarifying the hybrid‑meeting subdivision applies exclusively to state public bodies (a change requested by the town of Brattleboro); and multiple agencies’ requests for narrow operational exemptions (for example, the Land Use Review Board), which counsel said could be addressed either by drafting specific exemptions in the open‑meeting statute or by changing the statutes that create or govern those agencies.

Anderson told members he had researched testimony claiming some state agencies receive no state funds and therefore should be exempt from hybrid requirements; he found decades of appropriations and state financial ties to several agencies totaling “in total 30 to $40,000,000 over those couple of decades,” and he offered to provide appropriation copies to the committee. Members flagged that factual point when weighing broad exemptions for agencies that claim primarily nonstate funding sources.

The committee asked counsel to prepare a side‑by‑side document comparing stakeholder requests to the bill language and to circulate the document to staff (Autumn) and members. The meeting closed with no formal action; members scheduled informal follow‑up work and planned to reconvene later that day to consider other amended language.

No motions or votes on S.59 were recorded at the April 23 session.