Compliance

Question

As you know, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation (S.50001/A.40001) extending virtual access to public meetings under New York State's Open Meetings Law, which allows New Yorkers to virtually participate in local government meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Answer

Short answer

There is no requirement to disclose the location of a remote participant under the past Executive Orders or the current modification.

 

Long answer


Question

The Governor signed S1150A/A1228A into law [on] October 19, 2021. Now Chapter 481, this change requires that open meeting documents be available upon request or posted to the public body's website at least 24 hours prior to the open meeting at which the documents will be discussed.  Can you comment?

AND

Answer

Because there are a lot of layers here, let's start with some bedrock fundamentals.

Bedrock #1: All NY-chartered libraries, including association libraries, must abide by the Open Meetings Law (the "OML"), a New York State law which requires certain meetings be accessible in real time to the general public.[1]