Assistant Attorney General Stephen Hansen trains City of Minot staff on North Dakota open meetings and records law

Stephen Hansen, an assistant attorney general for North Dakota who handles the office's open-records and open-meetings portfolio, led a training for City of Minot staff on the state's transparency laws and recent updates.

Hansen said the presentation covered three parts: open meetings; general public-records law; and law-enforcement exemptions. He emphasized the basic starting point under state law: "Assume the records requested are open unless a law protects them from disclosure." He told attendees that the primary legal sources are the state constitution and the North Dakota Century Code, notably chapter 44-04.

Hansen defined a "meeting" as a quorum of a governing body discussing public business and noted a quorum is generally one-half or more of members (for example, three of five). Meetings can occur in person, by phone or video, or at social events if public business is discussed; exceptions include social gatherings where no public business occurs, certain emergency operations, attendance at national or state association events, and training seminars when no public business is discussed.

The presenter highlighted the difference between regular and special meetings: regular meetings are set by schedule and require an agenda (but may include some unlisted items), while special meetings are limited to the items on the posted agenda. He said notices must include the time, date and location (or electronic login information), topics to be discussed and any planned executive session, and must be posted when members receive the agenda, at the governing body's main office and on the city website.

Hansen summarized minutes requirements: list of members present, call-to-order and adjournment times, topics discussed, motion descriptions including who moved and seconded, and the result of every vote (with individual roll-call votes required for non-procedural matters).

On public comment, Hansen pointed out a recent legislative change: certain entities, including cities, counties, school districts, park districts and water resource districts, must provide an opportunity for public comment at regular meetings. He said entities may limit comments by per-speaker time, total public-comment time, and by agenda topic, and must adopt a written public-comment policy that prevents defamatory, abusive, harassing or unlawful remarks.

Turning to open records, Hansen described records broadly as recorded information regardless of form, including emails, audio and video. He explained the legal distinction between exempt records (which a custodian may choose to release or withhold) and confidential records (which cannot be released except by statute or court order). Examples of confidential information he cited include Social Security numbers and computer passwords; exempt categories include some employee personal details and internal investigations for limited periods.

Hansen advised that custodians should redact protected information from otherwise responsive records rather than denying the entire record, and said custodians need only provide records in their possession; contracting a third party to hold records does not absolve custody responsibilities. He also reminded staff that requesters need not be North Dakota residents and may file anonymously; custodians generally may not require a requester’s identity or reason for seeking records except where statute requires it.

On practical burdens and fees, Hansen said copying charges may be up to 25 cents per printed page, postage and certain reproduction costs may be recovered at actual cost, and locating or redacting records is free for the first hour and $25 per hour thereafter (custodians may require prepayment once an estimate is provided). He added that five or more requests from the same requester within seven days may be treated as one request for computing the first hour free.

Hansen reviewed enforcement: a requester with a written denial may ask the Attorney General for an opinion (within 30 days for records denials; 90 days for an alleged unnoticed meeting), and a public entity has seven days to cure a violation after an adverse AG opinion; private civil suits are also possible (generally filed within 60 days of when the complainant knew or should have known of the violation), and courts may award $1,000 or actual damages for intentional or knowing violations. He cautioned that knowingly releasing confidential records can be a criminal offense.

In the law-enforcement portion, Hansen said the most common exemptions are active criminal-intelligence and investigative information, which remain exempt while related investigations or prosecutions are ongoing; he noted that arrest facts, crime summaries, radio logs and arrest photographs are commonly open. He emphasized that information protecting officer safety, undercover identities, certain victim images and juvenile materials remain subject to special protections and redaction rules and recommended consulting the city attorney on complex matters, including Marsy's Law (victim-rights assertions).

Staff asked several practical questions during a closing Q&A. On device extractions, Hansen said that material extracted from phones or computers is subject to open-records review and may be exempt if part of an active criminal case; if the records are in the entity's possession, they must be treated as public records unless an exception applies. He confirmed that converting electronic material to PDF is an acceptable method to redact confidential information when necessary. On search warrants, Hansen said possession — not the scope of a warrant — determines whether an entity must respond to a records request: "If you have it, it is subject to the open-records law." He also reiterated that non-disclosure agreements cannot be used to circumvent open-records or open-meetings requirements under state law.

Hansen closed by directing attendees to the Attorney General's website for guides, templates (including a records-response template and templates for executive-session forms and notices) and a law-enforcement-records checklist, and thanked the group for attending.

The session ended with a brief discussion of remedies for alleged violations (private suit or AG opinion) and no formal actions were taken.