{"id":1812,"date":"2007-06-05T13:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-05T19:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/county-will-likely-return-to-detailed-meeting-minutes\/"},"modified":"2007-06-05T13:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-05T19:38:00","slug":"county-will-likely-return-to-detailed-meeting-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/county-will-likely-return-to-detailed-meeting-minutes\/","title":{"rendered":"County will likely return to detailed meeting minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RmW8A9ANNRI\/AAAAAAAACgY\/msN56Ot4xFw\/s1600-h\/DonaAnaCounty.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RmW8A9ANNRI\/AAAAAAAACgY\/msN56Ot4xFw\/s200\/DonaAnaCounty.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5072667279864182034\" border=\"0\"><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donaanacounty.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Do\u00f1a Ana County<\/a> Board of Commissioners appears ready to take another step toward more open government.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">For years, the county provided detailed minutes of commission meetings. That caused many problems, because the clerk\u2019s office didn\u2019t have enough resources to handle the work load. In recent years, the clerk\u2019s office struggled with completing minutes in the time required by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ago.state.nm.us\/divs\/civil\/oma_fifth_edition_final07.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">New Mexico Open Meetings Act<\/a>, leading to repeated violations of the act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">After the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haussamen.com\/2004SpecialAudit.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">2004 special audit<\/a> of the county found dozens of violations in 2003 alone, the county hired outside help so the clerk\u2019s office could catch up. Even that wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The county recently quit providing detailed minutes, and the clerk\u2019s office began producing minutes that include only what\u2019s literally required by the act \u2013 brief summaries of the items that were discussed and a record of how each commissioner voted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That wasn\u2019t enough for some commissioners. Now, they\u2019re scheduled to vote Tuesday on the hiring of an outside firm to produce verbatim transcripts of meetings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It will cost more money, of course, but it will also make government more accessible by keeping an accurate record not only of votes, but also of what\u2019s said during meetings. Assuming commissioners approve the expense, they\u2019ll be going above what\u2019s required in state law in an effort to make the county more open and transparent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners appears ready to take another step toward more open government. For years, the county provided detailed minutes of commission meetings. That caused many problems, because the clerk\u2019s office didn\u2019t have enough resources to handle the work load. In recent years, the clerk\u2019s office struggled with completing minutes in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}