This is the open meetings act uh workshop that we're doing.

Um and I'm gonna introduce uh Adam Roach here.

He's with the attorney general's office, and he's gonna uh do his presentation.

Um and at the end of the presentation, we'll take some questions if you have them.

So let's get through the presentation first and then we can address any any concerns or or questions after that.

Um and in the meantime, Adam, come on up.

Well, thanks very much for having me.

Uh appreciate it.

This is an important topic.

Um, and it's nice to be in Newport.

Um talking to Zy, I'm in Providence most of the time, so as an old friend.

Um, so I'm I rarely get a chance to come down here, so it's nice.

It is a school night though, so I don't think I can stick around uh much later after the presentation.

But so I'm at the open government unit at the attorney general's office.

Um we cover both the open meetings act and the access to public records act.

This presentation will be the open meetings act portion of it.

Um the APRA is kind of like a corollary to it, uh, but for public records.

Difference between the APRA and the OMA is the APRA kind of has a federal equivalent, FOIA, that we can steal a lot of law from that from FOIA.

The Open Meetings Act, there's not really a federal, there aren't federal meetings really, and to the extent that there are federal meetings, they're covered by regs and statutes and whatnot.

Um so this presentation, I can kind of scale the speed of it depending on how much time's available to me.

It can go as long as an hour and a half as short.

I've done it in like 20 minutes before.

I'll do something in between um so that you get your some bang for your buck, but I don't keep you here too long.

So I'm gonna start with the basic policy statement of the OMA.

Now it's important to know when you um, and by the way, look, some of you, I I know we've got attorneys here, we've got members of the council here, members of other public bodies.

So some of you may be very well-versed in this, some not so much.

That's okay.

Oftentimes I work through it with this every day, and sometimes there's an area of the OMA or the APRA that I'm just not familiar with, and I'm encountering it for the first time.

So this is kind of meant to be aimed at all levels.

Um, and it's it's helpful.

It's a helpful reminder for some who are more well-verse, and it it can also be kind of a new introduction to it.

So this is just the policy statement of the statute, but it's important because it sets forth why we have the OMA.

The OMA is just to promote transparency in government.

Um this might be apocryphal, but I think that a lot of these laws that were why were either on the books, put on the books or uh bolstered um, you know, back in kind of Nixon administration when transparency is sort of became hiding in the public consciousness.

Um, but there's an equivalent of the OMA for the most part in every state in the union.

Some are very rigid, some are more flexible.

The same with the APRA.

And it's just basically so that uh the public business is conducted publicly and not behind closed doors.

You there's not a really a cause of action uh that stems from a policy statement.

So oftentimes I get folks who kind of reach out to me, they want to file a complaint against someone or an entity.

And by the way, keep in mind you don't file complaints against individuals in a public body, you file it against the uh public body itself.

And something I encounter sometimes is are members of a public body who are kind of infighting and they want to file complaints against specific members of the public body they're on.

Well, in essence, that's filing a complaint against yourself because you're in that public body.

Um so that's something um to keep in mind.

Um but so the complaint is get against an entity itself.

Um and you can't people sometimes are looking for causes of action, I'd say uh um just because um something you you perceive something didn't happen in an open manner, just kind of premising a complaint based on this the policy statement itself, uh you can't that's not really a cause of action.

You need to point to a specific provision with the OMA.

Um, and we'll get into those um as the presentation goes on here.

So a lot of folks are scared by the OMA, but really if you look at it, this is all that the OMA requires.

It's pretty spartan.

Um, you know, having conversations with folks all the time.

Um, you know, does the OMA apply to my entity?

Well, if you're in doubt, um, and I was I was talking to folks here uh at the beginning of this, um, there's only really two ways you can get an official statement from this office, which is through a complaint filed against an entity or an advisory opinion, both of which would an advisory opinion is when you ask the office formally for this office to make a determination as to whether you're subject to the OMA or not.

Both take time.

Um, but hopefully as we go through this presentation, if you're kind of unsure as to whether an entity is subject to the OMA, this will provide a little bit more information.

That are applicable to your public body that require public comment.

Nothing within the OMA requires public comment.

This is important.

So oftentimes public bodies kind of work with the OMA in different ways.

I've noticed some public bodies, because I I when I work through findings and kind of make conclusions about whether an entity violated the OMA or the app or for that matter, I you know, I work through um watch meetings on YouTube, read minutes, whatnot.