Taking Attendance at Board Meetings

Training for: Legal Notes

Question: Is it legal to make a list of who attends our board meetings, including audience members, or is this unnecessary and perhaps even an invasion of privacy?

Answer: Although there is no State law or rule of procedure requiring a municipal board to record the names of non-board members in attendance, it is certainly not illegal to do so. If it’s permissible for a member of the public or the board itself to make a video record of the meeting, including footage of the audience (and it is, see Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, 1 M.R.S.A. §§ 403, 404), there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of anyone who chooses to attend.

Whether taking attendance at board meetings is helpful is within a board’s discretion to decide. It is in fact common practice to ask those addressing the board or otherwise participating in a proceeding to identify themselves for the record. This is readily understandable; there should be some record of who said what – at public hearings and especially at adjudicatory proceedings such as license or permit applications or appeals. Less apparent is the reason for taking names of non-participants, but there may still be some benefit, and again the choice is the board’s.

We should note that there is a requirement that municipal board’s take attendance of their own members at each meeting. This is part of the abbreviated “record” required by the Freedom of Access Act (see “FOAA Now Requires Record of Meeting,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, October 2011). This requirement does not apply to purely advisory boards, however. (By R.P.F.) 

Question: Is it legal to make a list of who attends our board meetings, including audience members, or is this unnecessary and perhaps even an invasion of privacy?

Answer: Although there is no State law or rule of procedure requiring a municipal board to record the names of non-board members in attendance, it is certainly not illegal to do so. If it’s permissible for a member of the public or the board itself to make a video record of the meeting, including footage of the audience (and it is, see Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, 1 M.R.S.A. §§ 403, 404), there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of anyone who chooses to attend.

Whether taking attendance at board meetings is helpful is within a board’s discretion to decide. It is in fact common practice to ask those addressing the board or otherwise participating in a proceeding to identify themselves for the record. This is readily understandable; there should be some record of who said what – at public hearings and especially at adjudicatory proceedings such as license or permit applications or appeals. Less apparent is the reason for taking names of non-participants, but there may still be some benefit, and again the choice is the board’s.

We should note that there is a requirement that municipal board’s take attendance of their own members at each meeting. This is part of the abbreviated “record” required by the Freedom of Access Act (see “FOAA Now Requires Record of Meeting,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, October 2011). This requirement does not apply to purely advisory boards, however. (By R.P.F.)