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Council reviews storage of older resolutions and options to digitize bound records
Summary
Council members asked how long-standing resolutions are stored and whether fragile bound books should be digitized; the city administrator said active policy resolutions were reviewed back to about 1980, copies are digital from about 1981 onward, and older books remain in a secured room for supervised public viewing.
The council discussed how the city stores and provides public access to passed resolutions and whether older bound volumes ought to be digitized.
A council member asked where sealed city resolutions are kept and how members of the public can view them. The city administrator said official resolutions are physically stored in a secured room and that staff also maintain a bound book of older resolutions in the library conference room that can be viewed under supervision. More recent resolutions are available digitally and are shared as PDFs on the staff drive and by email.
The administrator said they reviewed policy resolutions soon after taking office in 2019 and maintain a master list of active policies. "When I became city administrator in 2019, I went through every single resolution that we had that was a policy," the administrator said, adding that many outdated policies were repealed and that most items before the digital era remain in bound volumes because those older documents are fragile.
Staff told the council that digital records exist from about 1981 forward, and that scanning or photography of older bound books is possible but has not been completed; an intern or supervised scan was offered as a practical option. The administrator noted that a formal data request process applies if a member of the public asks for copies and that fees under the applicable data request statute would apply for printed copies.
Council members pressed whether old resolutions still carry legal effect. Staff said most resolutions are single-action items—such as grant approvals, contract authorizations, licenses or permits—that do not require repeal once the underlying action is complete; policy-level resolutions are the ones that need periodic review. Staff reported there were more than 200 resolutions recorded in the prior year but emphasized that not all are policy documents requiring repeal.
The discussion concluded with council members asking staff to include a records review option in the coming year's goal-setting and to explore digitization options for fragile bound volumes.
