New Procedures To Post_ Change or Cancel Public Meetings

							New Procedures To Post, Change or Cancel Public Meetings
Effective July 1, 2010
Ellen O’Brien Cushman, Town Clerk

To: All Boards, Committees and Commissions

Effective July 1, the changes to the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law require that postings of
public meetings/hearings be made available to the public with 24 hour/ 7 day access. The Town
Clerk’s office of Belmont, like many Massachusetts communities, is located in an historical
building that is not open 24 hours a day, which requires us to augment the official posting on the
Town Clerk’s bulletin board. The Website is not considered an adequate substitution. As such
the Town Clerk’s office will maintain a binder at the Belmont Police Station, 460 Concord Avenue,
containing all updates of our legal postings. In addition, the new Open Meeting Law requires that I
clarify the required procedures:

Posting a public meeting or hearing:
    The 48 hour advance notice of the posting will be strictly followed. The modification in the
        law indicates that weekend days may not be counted. Meetings to be held Monday must
        be posted by Thursday.
    A paper copy of the posting must be brought to the Town Clerk’s office. Email is not
        acceptable.
    The posting must contain the name of the entity holding the meeting, the date, time and
        place of the meeting.
    The posting must also contain a list of specific agenda topics that the chairman has
        reasonable expectation will be discussed at the meeting. This should not include items
        such as General Updates, New Business, Old Business, etc. that are too vague.
    No posting will be made unless all of the above are present.
    If the posting is made late in the day and must be posted before close of business,
        please call it to the attention of the Town Clerk’s staff to post immediately.
    The Town Clerk’s staff will date stamp and place the posting document on the Town
        Clerk’s official bulletin board in Town Hall as well as in the binder at the Police Station
    Please double check all information to minimize the number of changes and/or
        cancellations.
    The text of the posting must be confined to one half of the sheet of paper, measuring 5.5”
        x 8.5” in order to properly display all the meetings with agendas. It is not necessary to cut
        the paper to size. We ask you to consider limiting or eliminating any extraneous artwork.
    We encourage you to post the meeting/hearing on the Town website as well. This is
        performed by the official department liaison or the personnel in the Selectmen’s office (for
        those designated committees at selectmen@belmont-ma.gov )

Changing or canceling a posted public meeting or hearing:
    To change or cancel a meeting, a new posting must be prepared that highlights the
       cancellation or change of information. The procedure follows the same requirements as a
       new meeting. Town Clerk staff will post the change/cancellation notice.
    To urgently cancel a meeting scheduled to be held the same day as cancellation, the
       chair or clerk may phone the Town Clerk’s office at 617-993-2600 during business hours.
       The Town Clerk staff will provide an email address for the chair or clerk to send a follow
       up email to the Town Clerk’s office. It is the responsibility of the chair or clerk to cc the
       Selectmen’s email box at selectmen@belmont-ma.gov to cancel on the website as well.
       Town Clerk staff will mark the meeting/hearing as cancelled only when we receive the
       written/ email notification. Town Clerk’s staff will maintain the binder of meeting/hearing
       postings at the Police Station.

Thank you for your cooperation with this new procedure.