Posted: Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Requiring public
boards to keep more detailed nonpublic meeting minutes and exempting
some footage recorded from police body cameras are among the changes to
the New Hampshire Right-to-Know law set to take effect Jan. 1.
Nonpublic meeting minutes will now be required to contain details similar to those found in public meeting minutes.
And a section has been added to
the Right-to-Know law limiting what footage the public can view on
cameras worn by law enforcement officers.
Both amendments, as well as a
third, were approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by
Gov. Maggie Hassan during the 2016 session.
State Rep. Michael J. Sylvia,
R-Belmont, was the prime sponsor of two bills that led to the changes in
how nonpublic meeting minutes are recorded.
The new rules require those
minutes to include the names of board members in the sessions, the names
of people appearing before the boards, a brief description of what was
being discussed and any final decisions.
That provision isn’t in the law now.
The nonpublic minutes must also
have the vote of each board member on each decision. Nonpublic meeting
minutes are available after 72 hours, provided the board has not voted
publicly to seal them.
The changes give people more
confidence in their public officials, Sylvia said, and let them know who
was involved so they would know who to talk to if they wanted to get an
idea of what happened, or know why someone voted a certain way.
Boards and commissions go into
nonpublic sessions for good reasons, he said. The idea is to get as much
information out to the public about what happened in those meetings,
but not give up what the meeting was about, he said.
“It’s just transparency,” he said.
A third amendment to the
Right-to-Know law, which went into effect in June, allows public bodies
to discuss correspondence from their legal counsel in nonpublic session
regardless of whether their attorney is present.
Previously, boards and
commissions were only allowed to discuss pending or ongoing litigation
in nonpublic session, and not correspondence from legal counsel.
The N.H. Right-to-Know law sets
out rules for local, county and state boards and committees to follow
when conducting business in public or private. That includes stating
when meetings are open to the public, how board members should interact
with their counterparts outside of meetings, and what records are
available for public access, and when.
Keene City Clerk Patricia A.
Little said the new rules for how nonpublic meeting minutes are kept
will be a slight change for city officials. Those taking minutes for
city boards and committees don’t capture a roll call of who is in
attendance, but now will have to under the new regulations, she said.
The provision requiring minutes
reflect who voted, and in which direction, wouldn’t affect the city
because boards and committees only vote in public session, she said.
Swanzey Town Administrator
Michael T. Branley said the new requirements won’t affect the town, as
officials have already been recording minutes with the details required
in the new law, he said.
The problem before was that the requirements weren’t clear, he said.
Under another new provision in
the law, video and audio recordings made by law enforcement officers
using body cameras are exempt from the Right-to-Know law unless they
meet certain criteria. That means people can still request footage, but
only depicting any restraint or use of force by an officer, the
discharge of a firearm, or an encounter resulting in an arrest for a
felony-level offense.
Any recordings that constitute an invasion of privacy would be exempt, according to the law.
Currently, the law doesn’t provide any guidelines for what information is available from body cameras to the public.
While the law has some
exemptions, anyone could still file a Right-to-Know request for footage
from a body camera, Keene Police Chief Brian C. Costa said.
And that concerns him because
that footage of a person who is not likely in a good place in life could
then end up on YouTube, he said.
“I don’t have any problem with
either a victim, suspect or witness wanting to see the footage
captured,” he said. “That is absolutely their right. My sole concern is
someone having no interaction whatsoever in the situation file a request
for all the footage, and once they have it, they end up posting it for
everyone to see.”
The Keene Police Department doesn’t use body cameras.
Body cameras are tools for police
departments, but they’re no substitute for hiring the right people with
the right temperament and holding them accountable to national and
department standards, Costa said.
As the new rules take effect, the
legislative vetting process for seven bills proposing changes to the
Right-to-Know law will begin for the 2017 session.
The proposals include exempting
building plans from the Right-to-Know law, expanding the law to include
certain motor vehicle records, establishing a commission to study
processes to resolve Right-to-Know complaints, and establishing a
commission to study the costs of information requests under the law.
Meghan Foley can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or mfoley@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @MFoleyKS.
