Dumfries Town Council missing meeting minutes violates open government law

DUMFRIES, Va. — The Town of Dumfries has not made available minutes of its regular Town Council meetings.

Minutes from Town Council meetings between June 7 and November 15 have not been transcribed, according to Dumfries Town Clerk Dawn Hobgood. Virginia open records law mandates such minutes must be made available to the public. 

“Even draft versions of minutes are a public document under FOIA law,” said said Virginia Coalition for Open Government Director Meghan Rhyne. “The localities are required to keep minutes, and then retain them indefinitely.”

Hobgood suggested Potomac Local view video of the meetings on the town’s website if such video was made available. But that’s not always an option as, for example, there was no audio or video recording of the town’s November 15 meeting due to technical difficulties, Hobgood added.

Potomac Local used the Freedom of Information Act to order records of all Town Council meetings between the dates above. 

The lack of minutes comes after a new Town Council took office on July 1 following a May election that shook up the public body. Newcomers Melva Willis and former town police officer Brian Fields unseated the long-serving Vice Mayor Willie Toney, and the one-term Helen Reynolds.

That same month, Town Manager Daniel Taber resigned after serving five years in the role, and as temporary police chief before that. The town has yet to replace Taber, and Mayor Jerry Foreman has been pulling double duties as acting town manager.

State law does not require local governments to post minutes to a public website, but they are required to keep them and to make them available to the public. It’s a different story for state agencies. 

“Unlike local governments, state agencies must keep and post meeting minutes to the web, she added.”

The Virginia FOIA Advisory Council this past summer discussed changing the requirement but decided to leave the rule as is, Rhyne added.

The only meeting minutes posted to the Dumfries Town website in 2015 were recorded on Jan. 6, and Jan. 20. No minutes from 2016 have been posted on the town website.

When it comes to the other towns in Prince William County, there were three instances of Haymarket Town Council meeting minutes that did not appear on the town’s website but were made available to the public. When requested by Potomac Local, Town Manager Kimberly Murray sent meeting minutes between June 7 and November 15 via email. She also included this statement as to why the minutes did not appear online.

“We have realized a glitch with our software and the minutes are showing up for some who access the website and not for others. We are working on making the correction.”

The Town of Quantico does not post meeting minutes to its town website, but copies of the requested minutes were sent to Potomac Local by the town clerk and town attorney.

The Occoquan Town Council has posted the majority of its meeting minutes for 2016 to its website. The minutes for the first two meetings in November are available to the public, and copies were sent to Potomac Local.

Keeping and posting meeting minutes isn’t just something that only local government workers and reporters care about, said Rhyne.

“I think this is something — open government — that the public cares very much about or organizations like ours wouldn’t exist,” said Rhyne.