City of Lake Tapawingo, MO Open Meetings and Records

Any Legislative, Administrative, Governmental entity created by the Constitution or Statutes of this State, by order or ordinance of any Political Subdivision or District, Judicial entities when operating in an administrative capacity, or by executive order, including:

Any body, agency, board, bureau, council, commission, committee, Board of Regents or Board of Curators or any other Governing Body of any institution of higher education, including a community college, which is supported in whole or in part from State funds.

Any advisory committee or commission appointed by the Governor by executive order.

Any Department or Division of the State, of any Political Subdivision of the State, of any County or of any Municipal Government, School District or Special Purpose District including but not limited to Sewer Districts, Water Districts, and other subdistricts of any Political Subdivision.

Any other Legislative or Administrative Governmental deliberative body under the direction of three (3) or more elected or appointed members having rulemaking or quasi-judicial power.

Any Committee appointed by or at the direction of any of the entities and which is authorized to report to any of the above named entities, or any Policy Advisory Body, Policy Advisory Committee or Policy Advisory Group appointed by a President, Chancellor or any other Executive Officer of any college or university system or individual institution at the direction of the Governing Body of said institution which is supported in whole or in part with State funds.

Any quasi-public governmental body. The term "quasi-public governmental body" means any person, corporation or partnership organized or authorized to do business in this State under the provisions of Chapter 352, 353, or 355, RSMo., or unincorporated association which either:

Has as its primary purpose to enter into contracts with public Governmental Bodies, or to engage primarily in activities carried out pursuant to an agreement or agreements with public Governmental Bodies; or

Performs a public function, as evidenced by a statutorily based capacity to confer or otherwise advance, through approval, recommendation or other means, the allocation or issuance of tax credits, tax abatement, public debt, tax exempt debt, rights of eminent domain, or the contracting of leaseback agreements on structures whose annualized payments commit public tax revenues; or any association that directly accepts the appropriation of money from a public governmental body, but only to the extent that a meeting, record, or vote relates to such appropriation.

PUBLIC MEETING

Any meeting of a public governmental body subject to Sections 610.010 to 610.030, RSMo., at which any public business is discussed, decided, or public policy formulated, whether corporeal or by means of communication equipment. The term "public meeting" shall not include an informal gathering of members of a public governmental body for ministerial or social purposes when there is no intent to avoid the purposes of this Chapter.

PUBLIC RECORD

Any record, whether written or electronically stored, retained by or of any public governmental body including any report, survey, memorandum, or other document or study prepared and presented to the Board of Aldermen by a consultant or other professional service paid for in whole or in part by public funds; provided however, that personally identifiable student records maintained by public educational institutions shall be open for inspection by the parents, guardian or other custodian of students under the age of eighteen (18) years and by the parents, guardian or other custodian and the student if the student is over the age of eighteen (18) years.

PUBLIC VOTE

Any vote cast at any public meeting of any public governmental body.

Section 120.020 Closed Meetings and Closed Records Authorized, When.

[Ord. No. 678.2 §1, 11-5-1987]

All meetings, records and votes are open to the public, except the governmental body may close any meeting, record or vote relating to the following:

Legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public governmental body and any confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental body or its representatives and its attorneys. However, any minutes or vote relating to litigation involving a public governmental body shall be made public upon final disposition of the matter voted upon provided however, in matters involving the exercise of the power of eminent domain, the vote shall be announced or become public immediately following the action on the motion to authorize institution of such a legal action. Legal work product shall be considered a closed record.

Leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefor. However, any minutes or vote or public record approving a contract relating to the leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body shall be made public upon execution of the lease, purchase or sale of the real estate;

Hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting of particular employees by a public governmental body when personal information about the employee is discussed or recorded. However, any vote on a final decision, when taken by a public governmental body, to hire, fire, promote or discipline an employee of a public governmental body must be made available to the public within seventy-two (72) hours of the close of the meeting where such action occurs; provided however, that any employee so affected shall be entitled to prompt notice of such decision during the seventy-two (72) hour period before such decision is made available to the public. As used in this Subsection, the term "personal information" means information relating to the performance or merit of individual employees.

Nonjudicial mental or physical health proceedings involving identifiable persons, including medical, psychiatric, psychological, or alcoholism or drug dependency diagnosis or treatment.

Testing and examination materials, before the test or examination is given or if it is to be given again, before so given again.

Welfare cases of identifiable individuals.

Preparation, including any discussions or work product, on behalf of a public governmental body or its representatives for negotiations with employee groups.

Software codes for electronic data processing and documentation thereof.

Specifications for competitive bidding, until either the specifications are officially approved by the public governmental body or the specifications are published for bid.

10.

Sealed bids and related documents, until the earlier of either when the bids are opened, or all bids are accepted or all bids are rejected.

11.

Individually identifiable personnel records, performance ratings or records pertaining to employees or applicants for employment, except that this exemption shall not apply to the names, positions, salaries and lengths of service of officers and employees of public agencies once they are employed as such.

12.

Records which are protected from disclosure by law.

13.

Meetings and public records relating to scientific and technological innovations in which the owner has a proprietary interest.

Section 120.030 Closed Meetings, Procedure and Limitation — Public Records Presumed Open Unless Exempt.

Except as set forth in Subsection (B) of this Section, no meeting or vote may be closed without an affirmative public vote of the majority of a quorum of the public governmental body. The vote of each member of the public governmental body on the question of closing a public meeting or vote and the specific reason for closing that public meeting or vote by reference to a specific section of this act shall be announced publicly at an open meeting of the Governmental Body and entered into the minutes.

A public governmental body proposing to hold a closed meeting or vote shall give notice of the time, date and place of such closed meeting or vote and the reason for holding it by reference to the specific exception allowed under the provisions of Section 120.020. Such notice shall comply with the procedures set forth in Section 120.040 for notice of a public meeting.

Any meeting or vote closed pursuant to Section 120.020 shall be closed only to the extent necessary for the specific reason announced to justify the closed meeting or vote. Public Governmental Bodies shall not discuss any business in a closed meeting, record or vote which does not directly relate to the specific reason announced to justify the closed meeting or vote.

Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed as to require a public governmental body to hold a closed meeting, record or vote to discuss or act upon any matter.

Public records shall be presumed to be open unless otherwise exempt under the provisions of Section 120.020.

Section 120.040 Public Notice of Meetings — Exceptions.

All public Governmental Bodies shall give notice of the time, date, and place of each meeting, and its tentative agenda, in a manner reasonably calculated to apprise the public of that information. Reasonable notice shall include making available copies of the notice to any representative of the news media who requests notice of meetings of a particular public governmental body and posting the notice on a bulletin board or other prominent place which is easily accessible to the public and clearly designated for that purpose at the principal office of the body holding the meeting, or if no such office exists, at the building in which the meeting is to be held.

Notice conforming with all of the requirements of Subsection (A) of this Section shall be given at least twenty-four (24) hours, exclusive of weekends and holidays when the facility is closed, prior to the commencement of any meeting of a Governmental Body unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical, in which case as much notice as is reasonably possible shall be given. Each meeting shall be held at a place reasonably accessible to the public, and at a time reasonably convenient to the public, unless for good cause such a place or time is impossible or impractical. Every reasonable effort shall be made to grant special access to the meeting to handicapped or disabled individuals.

When it is necessary to hold a meeting on less than twenty-four (24) hours' notice, or at a place that is not reasonably accessible to the public, or at a time that is not reasonably convenient to the public, the nature of the good cause justifying that departure from the normal requirements shall be stated in the minutes.

A formally constituted sub-unit of a parent Governmental Body may conduct a meeting without notice as required by this Section during a lawful meeting of the parent Governmental Body, a recess in that meeting, or immediately following that meeting, if the meeting of the sub-unit is publicly announced at the parent meeting and the subject of the meeting reasonably coincides with the subjects discussed or acted upon by the parent Governmental Body.

If another provision of law requires a manner of giving specific notice of a meeting, hearing or an intent to take action by a Governmental Body, compliance with that Section shall constitute compliance with the notice requirements of this Section.

A journal or minutes of open meetings shall be taken and retained by the public governmental body, including, but not limited to, a record of any votes taken at such meeting. The minutes shall include the date, time, place, members present, members absent and a record of any votes taken. If a roll call vote is taken, the minutes shall attribute each "yea" and "nay" vote or abstinence if not voting to the name of the individual member of the public governmental body.

Article II Records

Section 120.050 Custodian of Records — Copies of Records or Document Search — Fees.

[Ord. No. 678.1 §§3—4, 11-5-1987; Ord. No. 678.2 §7, 11-5-1987]

The City Clerk shall be custodian of records. Each request for access to a public record shall be acted upon as soon as possible, but in no event later than the end of the third (3rd) business day following the date the request is received by the custodian of records of a public governmental body. If access to the public record is not granted immediately, the custodian shall give a detailed explanation of the cause for further delay and the place and earliest time and date that the record will be available for inspection. This period for document production may exceed three (3) days for reasonable cause.

The custodian shall charge one dollar ($1.00) per page for duplication costs and for document search. The custodian shall require payment prior to duplicating documents. All monies received by the City of Lake Tapawingo and its public governmental bodies will be paid over to the City Treasurer to be deposited in the City's General Fund.