Arizona Open Meeting Law Changes
Two new changes in Arizona Open Meeting law take effect July 29, 2010. These changes are designed to enhance citizens' access to information about government meetings.
Specifically, Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) section 38-431.01 (G), now includes the following language:
G. The secretary of state for state public bodies, the city or town clerk for municipal public bodies and the county clerk for all other local public bodies shall conspicuously post open meeting law materials prepared and approved by the attorney general on their website.
In accordance with this new requirement, please Click Here for a link directly to Chapter 7 of the Attorney General's manual (chapter containing Open Meeting Law information):
http://www.azag.gov/Agency_Handbook/ch07.pdf
The second change is to ARS section 38-431.02, which now includes the following language:
2. The public bodies of the counties and school districts shall:
(a) Conspicuously post a statement on their website stating where all public notices of their meetings will be posted, including the physical and electronic locations, and shall give additional public notice as is reasonable and practicable as to all meetings.
(b) Post all public meeting notices on their website and give additional public notice as is reasonable and practicable as to all meetings. A technological problem or failure that either prevents the posting of public notices on a website or that temporarily or permanently prevents the use of all or part of the website does not preclude the holding of the meeting for which the notice was posted if the public body complies with all other public notice requirements required by this section.
Click Here for the updated official notice stating where all public notices of Board of Supervisor meetings are posted. With respect to section 2 (b), please note that we have posted all public meeting notices on our website for many years and will continue to do so. Public Notices of meetings can be found at: www.cochise.az.gov
If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact the Clerk of the Board via e-mail: khoward@cochise.az.gov