From the MA Attorney General's Open Meeting Law Guide, which you can view online.



What information must meeting notices contain?
Meeting notices must be posted in a legible, easily understandable format; contain the date, time, and place of the meeting; and list all topics that the chair reasonably anticipates, 48 hours in advance, will be discussed at the meeting. The list of topics must be sufficiently specific to reasonably inform the public of the issues to be discussed at the meeting. Where there are no anticipated topics for discussion in open session other than the procedural requirements for convening an executive session, the public body should list "open session" as a topic, in addition to the executive session, so the public is aware that it has the opportunity to attend and learn the basis for the executive session. Open Meeting Law Guide Page 8 Version 3.18.15




Meeting notices must also indicate the date and time that the notice was posted, either on the notice itself or in a document or website accompanying the notice. If a notice is revised, the revised notice must also conspicuously record both the date and time the original notice was posted as well as the date and time the last revision was posted. Recording the date and time enables the public to observe that public bodies are complying with the Open Meeting Law’s notice requirements without requiring constant vigilance. Additionally, in the event of a complaint, it provides the Attorney General with evidence of compliance with those requirements.


If a discussion topic is proposed after a meeting notice is posted, and it was not reasonably anticipated by the chair more than 48 hours before the meeting, the public body should update its posting to provide the public with as much notice as possible of what subjects will be discussed during the meeting. Although a public body may consider a topic that was not listed in the meeting notice if it was not anticipated, the Attorney General strongly encourages public bodies to postpone discussion and action on topics that are controversial or may be of particular interest to the public if the topic was not listed in the meeting notice.



I believe this shows that the ultimate responsibility for the posting of and the content of an open meeting notice is responsibility of the Chairman and I do not believe a Chair can or should rely on a secretary to post the notice. Perhaps what should be questioned and asked for is the job description for Senior Legal Assistant because, I did not know Templeton had a legal department and , if there is a senior legal assistant, does that mean there is a junior or a simple legal assistant, and if that is so, where are those job descriptions? To me, that is more confusing and questionable than the lack of specificity of an open meeting agenda. Having said that, I do believe there should be more detail in the meeting notices and lets cut down on the last minute changes to the meeting notices. There seems to be a consistent pattern of changes made on the day of the meetings. Yes, things happen and do come up, but perhaps it would be better for the Chair to take a little more time to consider those things and if required, have meetings weekly.

Jeff Bennett