RE: www.mounthollyvt.org
Recent changes to VT’s Open Meeting Law require posting of agendas and minutes on a town website “if one exists, that is maintained or has been designated as the official website”. There are timeline requirements for these postings, which apply to every municipal board, council, commission, committee or subcommittee. The new law also allows for prosecution for violations of these postings, although there is a grace period until July 1, 2015. These provisions took effect on July 1, 2014.
A number of towns are concerned about these provisions of the new law. These concerns include: most towns have no IT staff or IT budget; most towns rely on the service of volunteers; the new law does not address how long agendas and minutes need to remain on the website or the implications for storage; the new law does not specify the relationship between documents on a website and those recorded by the Town Clerk and what happens if they are different. Some towns have already de-activated their website.
The website noted above has generally not been maintained since it was created (except by the ChitChat), and information on many pages was last updated in September 2008. At the July 08, 2014 Selectboard meeting, the Board voted to put a notice on the above website that it is NOT the designated website for the town, pending further investigation of the implications of the new law.
The Town intends to monitor how the new law is implemented by other towns and may reconsider this decision.
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