Public Notice

This is a paragraph in the Rock Lake Advisory Committee minutes.
“Discussion of ‘Last Minute’ Additions to the Agenda: Bob raised the question of if these were legal. They are legal when they meet all the stipulations of notice. Stan discriminated between acting on items versus simply discussing items added at the last minute based on if they were controversial.”

I’m not their legal counsel and although it is a joint committee – the Town of Lake Mills has primary oversight of the committee. But this is the statutory requirement.
Every public notice of a meeting of a governmental body shall set forth the time, date, place and subject matter of the meeting, including that intended for consideration at any contemplated closed session, in such form as is reasonably likely to apprise members of the public and the news media thereof. The public notice of a meeting of a governmental body may provide for a period of public comment, during which the body may receive information from members of the public.

I do not believe that anything can be added to agenda without meeting the statutory notice requirement. Emergency notice requires 24 hour prior posting and notification of the press. I can not see how adding to the agenda at a meeting meets this requirement. Members of the public can bring things up during the allowed public comment section where members may ask questions regarding the issue but not act or add to the agenda.

Convening body members are expected to properly prepare for a meeting and provide the proper notice. Adding items at the meeting is unacceptable. The conditions that the Supreme Court set in the plain meaning standard are about the wording of the notice, not whether it needs to be notice.

The Supreme Court has determined that “the plain meaning of Wis. Stat. § 19.84(2) sets forth a reasonableness standard, and that such a standard strikes the proper balance contemplated in Wis. Stat. §§ 19.81(1) and (4) between the public’s right to information and the government’s need to efficiently conduct its business.” This reasonableness standard “requires a case-specific analysis” and “whether notice is sufficiently specific will depend upon what is reasonable under the circumstances.” In making that determination, the factors to be considered include: “[1] the burden of providing more detailed notice, [2] whether the subject is of particular public interest, and [3] whether it involves non-routine action that the public would be unlikely to anticipate.”

Whether a meeting notice is reasonable, according to the Court, “cannot be determined from the standpoint of when the meeting actually takes place,” but rather must be “based upon what information is available to the officer noticing the meeting at the time the notice is provided, and based upon what it would be reasonable for the officer to know.” Once reasonable notice has been given, “meeting participants would be free to discuss any aspect of the noticed subject matter, as well as issues that are reasonably related to it.”
However, “a meeting cannot address topics unrelated to the information in the notice.” The Attorney General has similarly advised, in an informal opinion, that if a meeting notice contains a general subject matter designation and a subject that was not specifically noticed comes up at the meeting, a governmental body should refrain from engaging in any information gathering or discussion or from taking any action that would deprive the public of information about the conduct of governmental business.

This information available from the Attorney General seems pretty clear to me.