Commissioners review Open Meetings Act, GRAMA, conflicts and ex parte rules in annual training

Helen, the presenter provided the commission’s annual training on Utah’s Open and Public Meetings Act, county LODMA training requirements, GRAMA record rules and commission bylaws. She emphasized statutory notice requirements, limits on closed meetings, and the recent statutory change that narrows when an informal gathering qualifies as a meeting under state law.

Helen said the statute requires 24-hour advance notice that includes a reasonably specific agenda and that notices be posted to the Utah Public Notice website and the county’s official site. She explained that electronic meetings are permitted so long as the public can participate and be heard and urged the commission to adopt conservative practices about off-line conversations: “If there’s a quorum present and you’re meeting to deliberate or take action, that needs to be noticed,” she said.

Helen walked through a legislative change to Utah Code 52-4-103 clarifying that, under the new language, a “meeting” means a gathering of a public body with a quorum present that is convened by an individual with authority to act as the public body to receive comment, deliberate or take action. She cautioned that prearranged gatherings of a quorum to predetermine action remain prohibited and advised commissioners to avoid email threads or Zoom chat discussions that create off-the-record deliberations.

The training covered closed-session procedures (a motion and roll-call vote in open session, two-thirds of the quorum required to enter closed session in most cases, and limitations on topics that can be discussed in private), recordkeeping and enforcement (including potential remedies if notice or process errors occur), conflict-of-interest expectations in the commission’s bylaws and GRAMA obligations for commissioner emails and texts related to commission business.

Commissioners asked for clarifications about recusal practices—whether a conflicted commissioner must leave the room during a closed session—and about committee work and the difference between legislative and administrative matters; Helen said some distinctions matter and offered a more detailed review at a future meeting. She also advised members to forward public-email comments to the assigned planner so the comments can be included in the official record.

The training concluded with an invitation for further quarterly training and an agreement to schedule follow-up sessions on land-use-specific topics in March.