Residents and council raise transparency concerns about UDO committee materials and access

Residents and at least one council member criticized the accessibility of materials for the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) committee, saying agenda packets lacked documents relied on in committee meetings and that some members used a committee file area or chat board that the public could not easily access.

Steve Brown, a longtime resident and attendee of UDO meetings, told the council he was frustrated that packets included only prior minutes and not the working documents displayed in the meeting. He asked how the public was expected to comment when resource materials were not provided in advance. Brown asked whether back-channel discussions or a chat board might violate open-meetings rules.

Council members and staff responded that while Georgia open-meetings law requires publication of an agenda, it does not mandate a complete packet; however, best practice is to post supporting materials. Planning staff and the city clerk said many files referenced by the committee are on the city’s servers and that records are available on request. Staff additionally said two UDO committee members recently asked for a webpage to post documents; the city’s web team confirmed it would create a page to host UDO materials and that many documents can be provided to citizens without charge where they are readily available.

Council members said they wanted more proactive posting of documents to improve transparency; staff said short-term record requests (the first 15 minutes of staff time) are normally free and that archived files could be made accessible. Council requested staff follow up on posting the UDO materials to a public web page and to confirm procedures to ensure applicants and the public receive timely notice of meeting-time changes (a separate administrative-variance scheduling problem was discussed and staff said they would reschedule and remedy a missed hearing).