Rehoboth clearing backlog of delinquent meeting minutes
In an effort to get caught up on a backlog of meeting minutes, Rehoboth Beach commissioners approved minutes from 37 prior meetings during a commissioner meeting Feb. 9. All except one were more than two years old.
“We’re playing catch-up. We’re doing very well,” said Mayor Stan Mills, in advance of the minutes being approved.
The 37 sets of meeting minutes include budget workshops and special meetings from January 2021 to March 2024. Only Mills and Commissioner Patrick Gossett remain from when the meetings were held.
Many of the special meetings included discussions related to the implementation and then rolling back of COVID-era regulations. The meetings also coincided with multiple city managers leaving in short succession. The minutes did include one from a town hall meeting in July 2019, which was a presentation and discussion on the proposed changes to water and sewer rates from the city’s utility rates working group.
Following the meeting, in an email Feb. 11, City Manager Taylour Tedder said the city had developed a backlog of meeting minutes because meeting volume had increased during that time.
“The next meeting will bring the city fully up to date on minutes,” said Tedder, who was not working for the city when the old meetings took place. “City management developed a plan with staff to get all minutes caught up, and that plan has now been accomplished.”
Meeting minutes available to the public, commissioners and city staff are helpful to reference actions taken more easily than watching the recordings, said Tedder. Also, it allows the city to produce responsive records to public information requests for minutes, he said.
The city has been diligently plugging away at getting meeting minutes approved at commissioner meetings for months now. Not including the two recent meetings, 90 sets of minutes have been approved since May – 18 in January, three in December, eight in November, five in October, six in August, 20 in July, 15 in June and 15 in May. Not all of these meeting minutes were years old, as some were from meetings in the months immediately prior.
Moving forward, Tedder said the expectation is to have commissioner meeting minutes available for approval the following month. For example, he said, if a regular meeting is in February, the minutes are planned to be approved at the following regular meeting in March.
Following the meeting, in an email Feb. 11, Mills said he is very pleased the commissioners will be caught up on the meeting minutes.
Chris Flood has been working for the Cape Gazette since early 2014. He currently covers Rehoboth Beach and Henlopen Acres, but has also covered Dewey Beach and the state government. He covers environmental stories, business stories and random stories on subjects he finds interesting, and he also writes a column called Choppin’ Wood that runs every other week. He’s a graduate of the University of Maine and the Landing School of Boat Building & Design.
