Open Meetings in Rhode Island

As you enter the pages for the various cities and towns, you will see links to meetings information:

   Meetings Calendar     Upcoming Meetings

Those links will connect you to agendas posted for official meetings of Rhode Island state and municipal boards, commissions and committees. The following article describes the background of the legislation and the processes undertaken to make this possible.

Rhode Island’s New Town Crier - A Model for Public Access

Oxford Round Table Freedom of Speech and Press: Trials and Tribulations

Pembroke College Oxford, England March 20 – March 25, 2005

Robert L. Balliot ~ Rhode Island, USA

ABSTRACT

Legislative reform in Rhode Island and information technology have opened access to government information and provide a new method for accountability. Effective July of 2004, the Rhode Island Open Meetings law requires the 2500-3000 active state and municipal boards and commissions to file agendas and minutes electronically with the Secretary of State. Agendas must be received 48 hours in advance of public meetings in order for those meetings to be deemed lawful. Public access to the data is provided by the Secretary of State’s Town Crier website. The Town Crier is a massive data retrieval and compilation project employing RSS programming to allow real time anonymous search of all records. Town Crier is unique to Rhode Island and a model of ethical access to public information mirroring the values of the America Library Association.

INTRODUCTION

The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is one of the original 13 colonies.

It is the smallest state in the U.S. with an area of 1,045 square miles. The population of Rhode Island as of the 2000 U.S. Census was 1,048,319 making it the second most densely populated state with 1,003.2 citizens per square mile. There are 39 cities and towns with Providence serving as the capital city.

At any time, there are between 2,500-3,000 active public state and municipal boards and committees that help to administer everything from the lottery to libraries.

In 1984, RIGL Chapter 42-46 Open Meetings Law was enacted. Along with RIGL Chapter 38 - 2 Public Records Law, the Open Meetings Law provides a cohesive set of rules that govern accountability for public boards and committees along with access to public records. Two of the key components of RIGL Chapter 42-46 are the creation and disposition of agendas and minutes. Agendas must be publicly posted in at least two places 48 hours in advance of a meeting in order for that meeting to be deemed lawful. All public boards and committees are also required to keep minutes to account for their actions. RIGL Chapter 38-2 prescribes what minutes and records will be available for public review.

Overall responsibility and interpretation of the Open Meeting rules is guided by the Office of the Rhode Island Secretary of State. Responsibility for enforcement of the Open Meeting Law falls with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office.

The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General’s Civil Division is charged by statute “to investigate citizen complaints arising under the Access to Public Records Act, R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-8(b), and the Open Meetings Act, R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-46-8(a). The Access to Public Records Act is a chapter of the Rhode Island General Laws designed to provide access to public documents. The Open Meetings Act is a chapter of the Rhode Island General Laws designed to ensure that the business of government is conducted in an open manner thus allowing public participation in their government.”

“The Department also issues advisory opinions to public bodies concerning any pending matter that may implicate either the Open Meetings or Access to Public Records Acts. The Department issues two types of advisory opinions: oral/telephonic advisory opinions, which are not binding upon the Department of Attorney General, and written advisory opinions, which express the opinion of this Department. Requests for advisory opinions must be made by legal counsel for the public body.”

The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General also compiles yearly summaries on Open Meetings and Access to Public Records findings and holds public meetings to discuss those summaries:

LEGISLATIVE CHANGES

On February 11, 2004, Rhode Island State Representative Gordon Fox introduced a bill H 5663.

H 5663 included specific changes to the Open Meetings law recommended by the Rhode Island Secretary of State (PROJO JUNE 1, 2004 pg. C.01). All agendas, minutes, and yearly meeting schedules covered by the Open Meetings law would be electronically transmitted to the Secretary of State in accordance with section (e). This would be in addition to the existing hard copy posting and retention requirements.

“(e) All notices required by this section to be filed with the secretary of state shall be electronically transmitted to the secretary of state in accordance with rules and regulations which shall be promulgated by the secretary of state. This requirement of the electronic transmission and filing of notices with the secretary of state shall take effect one (1) year after this subsection takes effect.”

The amended Open Meetings Act was signed into law in July, 2003 and was effective July 17, 2004:

NEW PROCESS

Prior to the effective date of July 17, 2004, the Secretary of State announced plans for a new ‘Town Crier’ web site. The press release in the Providence Journal newspaper outlined the goals of this project and announced a series of six public meetings to discuss and “comment on the rules and regulations that would govern Electronic Town Crier.” (PROJO; June 1, 2004, pg. C.01). The web site would provide access over the Internet to the agendas and minutes database compiled and managed by the Secretary of State. Announcement of the schedule for implementation came in July (PROJO; July 21, 2004, pg. B.01). Originally scheduled for a 2004 completion date, the project was delayed until

February, 2005. On-line agendas that were made available to the public included the first

live local feeds to the City of Providence and the Town of Middletown (PROJO; February 23, 2005, pg. B.03)

x On-line Agendas and Minutes: http://www3.sec.state.ri.us/pubinfo/openmeetings  (last visited 03.14.05)

ADVANTAGES

The new Town Crier process provides numerous advantages over the old method of providing agendas and minutes. Some of those advantages include:

  •  Immediate access

  • Reduced clerical costs

  • Public employment accountability

  •  Enhancement of the democratic process

  • Helping to reclaim public trust after many transgressions by public officials

  • (PROJO; March 19, 1995, pg. A-26)

THE PROCESS

Each agency or governing body is required to appoint an Electronic Filing Coordinator (EFC) to facilitate electronic filing under the rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of State. The EFC acts as a liaison between the Open Meetings team at the Secretary of State’s Office and the various boards and committees appointed by the governing body or agency. In the case of a town or municipality, this function would generally fall within the responsibilities of the town or city clerk.

The Secretary of State provides the EFC with password access to the Town Crier web site upon verification of EFC appointment by the governing body or agency:

The EFC surveys the boards and committees to create a master list that includes board or committee, name of designated committee electronic filer, governing body, e-mail, mail, and fax contacts along with statute, resolution, or ordinance that created the board or committee. Each board and committee is responsible for appointing an Electronic Filer (EF) who will post actual minutes and agendas. The EFC submits the master list of Electronic Filers to the State Library as a public record. The State Library then generates a list of active boards and committees that fall within the purview of each governing body or agency and that list is processed by the Open Meetings team with the Secretary of State.

The EFC provides access to the Town Crier for designated EFs for each board and committee by assigning passwords and logins within the Town Crier website. EFs then receive notification by e-mail of logins and passwords and instructions for accessing the Open Meetings (Town Crier) login page. The EFC generates a profile for each of the filers containing all of the relevant contact information. An electronic filer can be assigned electronic filing responsibility for multiple boards and committees. Also, boards and committees can be assigned multiple filers – which can be helpful if an EF is unavailable.

After receiving e-mail notification of their status, electronic filers can proceed to the Open Meetings login page URL. The filer enters their assigned login and password and they enter the Open Meetings website:

Login | Options | Log Out

Welcome to the Open Meetings Login Page

Attention Filers, to access this part of the site, you need to log in with the user name and password provided by your Filing Coordinator.

User name:

Password:

Can't remember your password? You can request it here.

Office of the Secretary of State 82 Smith Street Room 217 Providence, Rhode Island 02903 Hours: 8:30AM to 4:30PM Phone: 401-222-2357 Fax: 401-222-1356 TDD#: TTY 711 E-mail:openMeetings@sec.state.ri.us

Once EFs log on to the website, they have the options of filing yearly calendars, filing agendas, filing minutes or filing amended agendas and minutes. The method used is a basic web form with radio buttons and drop-down boxes. The bodies of agendas or minutes may be entered either as an uploaded Adobe PDF file or as plain text. Plain text that is uploaded will automatically be converted into Adobe PDF file.

Welcome Robert Balliot

Login | Options | Log Out

Add New Meeting Notice

Entity: Middletown Library Board of Trustees Filing Date: February 2, 2005 Filing Type: Final

Annual Meeting Calendar:

Note: This is different than a monthly meeting notice

Address (line 2):

City:

State:

Zip:

Emergency: Choose ONE of the following methods for submitting the text of the notice:

Upload a PDF file

Office of the Secretary of State 82 Smith Street Room 217 Providence, Rhode Island 02903 Hours: 8:30AM to 4:30PM Phone: 401-222-2357 Fax: 401-222-1356 TDD#: TTY 711 E-mail:openMeetings@sec.state.ri.us

The data is transferred to the Secretary of State server after all of the required information is entered to the web form and submitted. The server automatically generates an e-mail receipt as acknowledgement of filing which is sent to the electronic filer and the electronic filing coordinator. The electronic filer receives a link to the actual PDF file so they may review what they have submitted. The EFC receives a time dated receipt and is asked to retain the receipt as proof of electronic filing:

This is your electronic confirmation for the electronic filing of meeting notice for the Middletown Conservation Committee. The meeting notice filed is for the meeting on: December 12, 2005 6:00:00 pm.

This notice was electronically filed on the Secretary of State Open Meetings Website on: March 12, 2005 10:37:29 am.

Please retain this message as your official proof of electronic filing.

Sincerely,

The Open Meetings Team at Office of Secretary of State Matt Brown State House Room 38 Providence, RI 02903

(401)
222-2357
(401)
222-1404 TTY: 711 openmeetings@sec.state.ri.us

www.state.ri.us

Consequently, the EFC retains a State Record in an electronic format. Public access to that record is defined by RIGL §38-2-3 Public Records Law:

(e) Any person or entity requesting copies of public records may elect to obtain them in any and all media in which the public agency is capable of providing them. Any public body which maintains its records in a computer storage system shall provide any data properly identified in a printout or other reasonable format, as requested.

In the absence of an on-line database, the EFC becomes the first point of verification if the Open Meeting rules have been followed by providing evidence whether or not the notice was posted 48 hours in advance of a meeting.

Immediately upon submission, the file is converted to PDF and indexed by the Secretary of State server. The file becomes available as an RSS feed and is automatically shown as a link at the Secretary of State Open Meetings (Town Crier) web site in aggregate with all of the other filings that have been made.

TECHNOLOGY

As of February, 2004, all of the Cities and Towns in Rhode Island were provided with 384K data lines from the State of Rhode Island. According to Howard Boksenbaum – of the Rhode Island Office of Information Technology, the lines were provided in part as a mechanism to respond to health EMA events funded by Homeland Security grants. As an added benefit, every City and Town gained the infrastructure that could be used to support the electronic filing process.

Concurrent with the project to provide on-line minutes, schedules, and agendas the Secretary of State’s Office worked with other state agencies to develop open source software to enable data sharing between government entities. The initiative is called REX (RI eGovernment Exchange).

Along with access to the meetings and agenda databases, data sharing projects also include:

Title Type Release Owner
RI Government Press Releases RSS BETA RI.gov
Sec. of State Corporations Registration REST BETA Sec State
Sec. of State Rules Database REST BETA Sec State
Mayor of Providence Press Releases RSS Live City of Prov.
Providence City Council Press Releases RSS Live City of Prov.
Providence Arts Events RSS Live Prov. Arts Council

CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTATION

The initiative undertaken to provide electronic access to 2,500-3,000 various boards and committees agendas, schedules and minutes was a tremendously complicated task. Challenges included:

Development of rules and regulations governing electronic filing x Development of a web-based user interface x Development of a database structure to receive information through the web based interface x Education of 2,500-3,000 boards and committees x Identification and education of about 150 Electronic Filing Coordinators x Identification and education of 2,500-3,000 board and committee Electronic Filers x Development and implementation of RSS tools using open source software to extract the data created x Education of the various governing bodies and public on how to use the RSS tools to provide access to locally generated information x Development of guidelines and definitions regarding records retention and archiving data created by this process x Education of the public on how to find the data that they want x Resolution of incompatibility issues of the open source RSS programs with local web pages and servers

The issues of education will be continuous as new boards and committees are formed and new EFs and EFCs are assigned. All of the challenges were met by the Secretary of State and the minutes and agendas databases are available. The final issue of compatibility was solved at the local level at the Town of Middletown.

MIDDLETOWN RSS AGENDA FEED

The RSS process developed by the State is problematic as it was designed for the state systems employing Linux and PHP. For entities using externally hosted web sites and Windows servers, it can be very difficult to implement. The City of Providence uses the same type of system as the state, so they were able to develop in parallel.

The Town of Middletown uses FrontPage which requires use of ASP and does not support PHP. The web site is also hosted, so there is not the server level control that is presumed by the instructions given by the state. Server control is virtual using IIS. However, research conducted by the Middletown Public Library and Karen Mellor of the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services resulted in the use of XSL style sheets could be used to replace the RSS parser provided by the State. The XSL style sheets should allow any Windows server to bring in RSS feeds which would allow statewide access across all platforms.

RI STATE LAW and ALA GUIDELINES

The Rhode Island General Laws and American Library Association guidelines are very similar in their support of democratic ideals regarding public access to government records. Those ideals are the driving force behind implementation of this new system of accountability. Examples include:

State Law

TITLE 42 State Affairs and Government CHAPTER 42-46 Open Meetings

§ 42-46-1 Public policy. – It is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner and that the citizens be advised of and aware of the performance of public officials and the deliberations and decisions that go into the making of public policy.

TITLE 38 Public Records CHAPTER 38-2 Access to Public Records

§ 38-2-1 Purpose. – The public's right to access to public records and the individual's right to dignity and privacy are both recognized to be principles of the utmost importance in a free society. The purpose of this chapter is to facilitate public access to public records. It is also the intent of this chapter to protect from disclosure information about particular individuals maintained in the files of public bodies when disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

§38-2-3 -(e) Any person or entity requesting copies of public records may elect to obtain

them in any and all media in which the public agency is capable of providing them. Any public body which maintains its records in a computer storage system shall provide any data properly identified in a printout or other reasonable format, as requested.

R.I.G.L. § 42-35-2 Public information – Adoption of rules – Availability of rules and orders.

(a) In addition to other rule making requirements imposed by law, each agency shall: (3) Make available for public inspection all rules and all other written statements of policy or interpretations formulated, adopted, or used by the agency in the discharge of its functions; (4) Make available for public inspection all final orders, decisions, and opinions

ALA – Access to Government Information

Access to government information is critical to a democratic society. In keeping with the mission of libraries, the American Library Association defends the public's right to know.

Policy 1.3 -ALA will promote efforts to ensure that every individual has access to needed information at the time needed and in a format the individual can utilize, through provision of library and information services.

CONCLUSION:

In an era where there is a sense that access to government information is being stifled, the State of Rhode Island has embarked on a truly ambitious project to develop information technology that will open government to the public at state and local levels. Legislative changes requiring the use of technology have helped to insure that the democratic ideal of maintaining open access to government will prevail.

References

The author would like to acknowledge the following people who provided input for this paper:

Stacy DiCola and the Open Meetings Team - Office of the Rhode Island Secretary of State
Howard Boksenbaum – Acting Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the State of Rhode Island
Christy Hetherington - Special Assistant Attorney General - Rhode Island Department of Attorney General
Karen Mellor – Web Developer - Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services

Town Crier would bring public notices to Internet; [East Bay Edition] The Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.: Jun 1, 2004. pg. C.01

Meeting notices to go online; [All Edition] TONY De PAUL Journal Staff Writer. The Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.: Jul 21, 2004. pg. B.01

Matt Brown Web site adds features; [All Edition] LIZ ANDERSON Journal State House Bureau. The Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.: Feb 23, 2005. pg. B.03

RHODE ISLAND'S SULLIED IMAGE Fruits of prosecution: The accused and convicted Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.: Mar 19, 1995. pg. A-26