In Florida, the Government in the Sunshine Law makes it so that public meetings must be open to the public. In 2013, a rule was added that says the public must be given a chance to speak at these meetings. But it’s not clear what “reasonable” means in terms of how much time the public should get to speak. A strict interpretation of the rule would make it really hard for anything new to be talked about at the meetings, and it could limit the public’s ability to participate. Public meetings must have an agenda so citizens know what will be discussed. If something important isn’t on the agenda, it could mislead people. In some court cases, it was ruled that as long as the meeting itself was properly noticed, there’s no requirement to give notice of potential changes to the agenda. However, the amount of notice required can depend on the specific circumstances. In Grapski v. City of Alachua, the court found that the city violated public records laws by not providing meeting minutes to the public before they were approved. This deprived the public of their rights and could not be fixed by releasing the minutes later.
In Transparency for Florida v. City of Port St. Lucie, the court found that the city may have violated the law by not giving proper notice of a meeting to discuss the city manager’s separation. The public was also not allowed to speak at the meeting. The court said the sufficiency of the notice depends on the specific facts of the case. If the meetings were properly noticed and open to the public, the courts generally held the publicâs ability to participate in the decision-making process was not violated. When a new law is being considered, the public has to be told about it and given a chance to share their thoughts. The proposed law has to be announced in the newspaper at least 10 days before it can be passed. People can also come to a meeting and speak up about the new law. Floridaâs Sunshine Law requires public meetings to be properly noticed, but it doesn’t define what “reasonable notice” means. The law doesn’t require a specific agenda to be published, and the government doesn’t have to give notice if they deviate from the agenda. The public must be given a chance to speak on any proposals before a board or commission. In meetings, motions are made for specific actions, and the public can speak on these motions. If the situation changes, new motions can be made. An agenda is a list of things to talk about or decide on at a meeting. It’s usually made by someone in charge, and it’s not official until the group votes to approve it. If you want to talk about something at a meeting, you have to tell the person in charge before the meeting. They’ll decide if it can be on the agenda. And the group can change the agenda if they want to. The Florida constitution says that each law can only be about one thing, and that thing has to be clearly stated in the title of the law. The idea is to prevent lawmakers from sneaking in unrelated stuff into laws, or combining different things to get more support for a law. If something is related to the main subject of the law, it’s allowed. The goal is to make sure people know what they’re voting on and to avoid confusion. The purpose of 286.0114 is to avoid confusion among the public. When applying the statute, commissions or boards can consider propositions not specifically listed on an agenda if they are connected to subjects that were listed. This approach is consistent with parliamentary rules of procedure. Florida Senate Bill 1092 (2018) would have repealed 286.0114 and made amendments to the Sunshine Law. The board or commission has to give at least 3 daysâ notice for meetings and include the agenda and any materials that will be discussed. They can have emergency meetings with 24 hoursâ notice. They can also change the agenda after itâs published. At the meeting, they have to have at least 2 copies of the agenda and materials. A proposed amendment wanted to make the notice requirement more specific and to require meetings to always be open for public participation. But it didnât say if new ideas related to the agenda could be discussed. Hopefully, if a similar bill is introduced in the future, it will allow important new ideas to be considered. Making sure public comments can be discussed is good, but requiring every new idea to be noticed before the meeting could stop important discussions from happening. It would be better to allow new ideas that are important to the topic of the meeting to be discussed. Florida law requires that government meetings be open to the public, with some exceptions for emergency situations or minor administrative tasks. The right to be heard at these meetings is not affected by these exceptions. There are specific laws and court cases that govern this requirement, and there are rules in place for conducting meetings. This information was provided by Mark Moriarty, a certified lawyer, on behalf of a legal organization in Florida.
Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/misled-interested-citizens-and-floridas-public-meeting-laws/
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