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Bountiful council completes annual open-meetings training, warned against 'serial communications'
Summary
City Attorney Bridal Jepsen led the council through the state-required Open and Public Meetings Act training, using a State Auditor's Office video and advising members to avoid text/phone chains and walking quorums that can void prior actions and be subpoenaed.
Bountiful's City Attorney led the council through the annual Open and Public Meetings Act training on Feb. 24, using a State Auditor's Office video to review when meetings must be open, when a governing body may lawfully close a session and how minutes and recordings must be handled.
The video and the attorney's summary emphasized that a public-body quorum meeting to discuss government business constitutes an open meeting. The training reminded members that regular meetings, public hearings, electronic meetings and emergency meetings all count as open and public meetings and that public bodies must give 24 hours’ notice for regular meetings and post agendas on the entity website, in a public location and on Utah’s public notice website under Utah Code 63G-30-102.
Why it matters: The council watched the training to satisfy the state auditor’s annual requirement and to refresh practical rules that affect how the council communicates and how it documents decisions.
The training stressed limits on when a meeting can be closed: a closed session requires a quorum and a proper vote (two-thirds of members present) and may be used only for narrowly defined topics, such as certain personnel matters, litigation strategy or specified real-property negotiations. When a closed meeting is held, the governing body must publicly announce the reasons, the location and record each member’s vote to close, and in many cases must preserve a recording or sworn statement for the public record.
City Attorney Bridal Jepsen summarized a key point from the video with practical advice for council members: “I’ve told you guys last year, please don’t text each other during a meeting about items we’re discussing during a meeting, that violates the idea of the open meetings act.” She and the training video also warned that using serial communications or phone chains to ascertain or influence votes can create an inadvertent quorum outside public view; if the intent is to circumvent the Open and Public Meetings Act, actions taken may be voided and private messages may become subpoenaable.
The training included recent case examples to illustrate pitfalls. Jepsen reviewed a North Logan case in which a closed meeting was treated as improperly noticed and a court ordered recordings released after the agenda failed to specify a proper closed-session notice, location and the vote of each member. The attorney also summarized an auditor-related case in which inadequate agenda notice required officials to repeat the action to cure notice defects.
The training concluded with a reminder that the public record requirements—pending minutes, approved minutes, recordings and any materials presented at the meeting—must be made available within the statutory timelines and that officials should consult the statute or counsel if in doubt.
The work session then shifted to a legislative update while the council awaited the arrival of Sen. Todd Wyler. No formal council votes or policy actions resulted from the training session itself.
