The Crosby City Council violated North Dakota’s open meetings laws by mishandling a special meeting last year, according to a recent attorney general opinion.
The Journal Publisher Cecile Wehrman requested an opinion regarding the July 2021 meeting related to the council’s administrative “nuisance hearings,” held 30 minutes before the board’s regular meetin,. Wehrman also requested records withheld by the city.
The council did not prepare a meeting notice or agenda for the hearings, did not post a meeting notice or send a notice to the newspaper, according to Wrigley. The city also violated open records law by wrongly citing attorney work product in denying a Journal request for emails, he said.
To remedy the violations, the city must provide minutes of the “nuisance hearings,” as well as review and provide the emails free of charge to requestors.
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Separately, Wrigley determined that the North Prairie Regional Water District Board properly provided notice of a November 2021 special meeting but failed to provide requested records within a reasonable time.
In another case, Wrigley ruled that the Lewis & Clark Public School Board in Berthold provided proper notice of an October 2021 special meeting to the public, but not to a citizen who had requested to be notified of such meetings.
