Attorney briefs Planning Board on Freedom of Access, conflicts and record rules

Attorney Phil Sofizer delivered the Planning Board’s required Freedom of Access Act (FOA) training on Feb. 4, covering open‑meeting duties, public‑record obligations, the narrow legal grounds for executive sessions and the board’s obligations on disclosure and recusal.

Sofizer told members FOA treats most proceedings and records as public and must be applied liberally to favor openness. He walked through common requirements: meetings must be open to the public except for statutory executive‑session reasons; records in a board member’s possession that relate to public business are presumptively public; and a basic meeting record must show date, time and members present or absent. “You need to have at a minimum the date, time, and place of your meeting, the members of the body holding the public meeting recorded as either absent or present, and all motions and votes taken by individual members if there's a roll call,” he said.

Sofizer…