Rhode Island Attorney General adviser outlines Open Meetings Act rules at Newport workshop

Adam Roche, an attorney in the Open Government Unit of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, presented an overview of the state Open Meetings Act at a Newport workshop and answered attendee questions about minutes, notice, remote participation and how the office handles complaints.

Roche said the core purpose of the Open Meetings Act (OMA) is to “promote transparency in government.” He told attendees that complaints under the OMA are filed against public bodies — not individual members — and that to sustain a complaint a claimant must point to a specific statutory provision rather than rely on the statute’s general policy statement.

The session summarized several recurring compliance issues. Roche listed the minimum content required in minutes: the date, time and place of the meeting; which members were present and absent; a record of any votes taken by individual members; and “any other relevant information that a member of the public body requests.” He said draft or unofficial minutes must be posted within 35 days of the meeting to the secretary of state’s website, noting the statute does not distinguish approved minutes from drafts for that posting requirement.

Roche explained the relationship between the OMA and related laws. He said the Access to Public Records Act (APRA) functions as a corollary for public records and has more direct federal analogues such as FOIA; the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also applies to meetings, requiring accessible venues. When a public body withholds records under APRA, the office can order disclosure; under the OMA the typical remedy is to require a public body to repeat a decision in public session if a meeting was improperly closed.

On remote participation, Roche said passive presence on a videoconference (for example, appearing on Zoom but not speaking) is not a technical violation, but participating from remote locations without proper notice or process can be. He cautioned that members may answer only the topic raised during public comment and that pivoting to an unrelated policy discussion during public comment risks circumventing the OMA.

Roche also addressed electronic communications and site visits. He said distributing information by email in advance is permissible when it is purely informational and not part of a collective back-and-forth. He recommended tools such as BCC to avoid inadvertent reply-all conversations that could form a prohibited “collective” deliberation. Regarding site visits, he said the office has found violations where a quorum visited a facility without notice to the public; a common workaround is to use fewer than a quorum for investigatory work and then report findings in an open meeting.

On enforcement, Roche described two formal paths from the office: advisory opinions when a public body asks whether the OMA applies to them, and complaint findings after a complaint is filed. He said staff sometimes perform an in-camera review of withheld records to determine whether a claimed nonpublic justification is valid. He added that while APRA enforcement commonly results in orders to disclose records, OMA findings more often lead public bodies to cure the problem themselves by redoing an action in open session before the office issues injunctive relief.

Roche closed the presentation by pointing workshop attendees to the Attorney General’s website for searchable findings and resources and said the office is available for follow-up questions.