Recently Asked Questions

First question: With the expiration of the Executive Orders on June 24th, 2021, including the Order modifying the requirements of the Open Meetings Law, are libraries back to the "old way" of conducting trustee meetings?

Follow-up question: If the answer to the first question is "yes," does this mean that trustees who still want/need to attend remotely from home must disclose their address in the meeting notice?

A member of my board of trustees would like for us to meet in person. There would be 9 people in the room. They wanted to know if allowing the meeting to be simultaneously on Zoom would satisfy the requirements of open meetings law even though only one member of the public would be able to be physically present in order to stay under the 10-member cap for small gatherings.

Under the executive order, the modifications to Open Meetings Law meant we (I'm asking for several libraries in our system) record our Board meetings.

How long does a library (public or association) or a cooperative public library system have to keep the recording of board or committee meetings ?  Looking at http://www.archives.nysed.gov/records/local-government-records-schedule-browse?combine=meeting+recording, it states:
 "Four months after the transcription or minutes have been created"

Transcribing could be challenging, particularly for smaller libraries, so we were relieved to read that once minutes were created, we might not have to transcribe (hopefully we are reading that correctly).

However - our question is about the placement of the word "or".  Is it:

Option 1: Once transcribed, keep for four months. Once minutes are created and accepted (which might be less than four months - in our case, it would be at the next board meeting), you can delete recording.
Option 2: Whether transcribed or minutes created, keep the recordings for four months. 

Under option 2, it seems like there is a higher standard for meetings.  Pre COVID, our board meetings would occur, open to the public but usually no public in attendance, and the only "evidence" of the meeting would be the minutes.  Now, we are required to keep the recording for at least four months - which isn't a huge hardship but curious about the rationale behind that.

Thank you!

The Gov has put out his new proclamation in regards to votes. At [our school district public library] our vote has always been separate from the school vote but the gov's doc reads that our only option is to have the vote with the school or have it in Sept. Sept would not work since our fiscal year is July to June.

Also, a couple of us are not sure about the trustee election. Do we not hold trustee election since we do not currently have any petitions filed for the open seat, if that is the case can the board appoint until the next election[?]

[Note; the text of this question was edited to remove the precise dates of scheduled election and notice.]

Executive Order 202.13 states:

"Circulation, filing, and collection of any designating petitions, or independent nominating petitions for any office that would otherwise be circulated or filed pursuant to the Election Law, Education Law or any other consolidated law for any office commencing March 31, 2020 are hereby postponed.

Any school board, library board, or village election scheduled to take place in April or May of 2020 is hereby postponed until at least June 1, 2020, and subject to further directive as to the timing, location or manner of voting for such elections."

My question is: our legal notices had been published indicating an open trustee position and petition deadlines were due March XX (none were filed) and the budget vote is April XX. The question is do we have to do a legal notice that the vote is postponed and do new legal notices once we have a date? At the same time can we reopen the opportunity for people to file a petition to run for the board?