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Intellectual Property, Commerce, & Technology

News: Dr. Robert Rines Founder & Former President

ABA Journal

April, 1982

LENGTH: 564 words

HEADLINE: Teleconferencing: Open Meetings Issue Raised

BODY:

Public agencies' increased use of teleconferencing to meet quorum requirements and conduct business has raised a legal question in Illinois. A coalition of journalist groups says the practice may violate the state's Open Meetings Act and wants a law to limit its use.

The act does not address the use of the teleconference call," said William Miller, president of the Illinois Freedom of Information Council in Springfield. "Is a meeting really public if all its members aren't there for the public to address? Some safeguards must be put into the act so the public can question board members just like they would if the members were there in person."

Teleconference calls were used recently in Illinois by three public bodies -- the state Board of Elections, and state colleges' Board of Governors, and the Lake County Sheriff's Office Merit Commission. The open-meetings issue was raised when the state attorney general's office was asked for an opinion on the legality of the meetings.

"There is no precedent, no case law, to answer those questions," said Shawn Denny, chief of the attorney general's opinions division. "This is a developing area of the law. As long as the meeting is open to the public and the public can participate in the teleconference call, then there's no violation. The real question I have is whether business should be transacted at these meetings. There is a fundamental problem: If you have a person on the phone, you have a gnawing question in the back of your head, 'Is that really the person authorized to vote?' These are questions that should be ad-dressed."

Miller and his council have drafted an amendment to the Open Meetings Act that would include the use of elec-tronic communication in its definition of a public meeting, but he doesn't expect the Illinois General Assembly to act on the proposal until later this year. Ideally, Miller said, the council prefers that members of public bodies meet in public.

An open-meetings question was raised December 31 when the Legal Services Corporation board, based in Wash-ington, held a first session using a teleconference call only hours after President Reagan replaced seven of the 11 board members. "The new members were announced at about 2 p.m. and the board met at about 6 p.m. that day using telecon-ferencing," said Timothy Ayers, LSC's director of public affairs. "One criticism was that the board didn't give enough public notice for the meeting." The board has acknowledged that action it took during that meeting is ineffective on technical grounds, Ayers added.

Teleconferencing will be used more frequently in the future because of its efficiency and ease, said Robert Rines of Concord, New Hampshire, chairman of the Technology Assessment Committee of the American Bar Association's Sec-tion of Science and Technology. "In fact, the use of telephones will be short-lived," he said. "Video will be used soon." The ability to see a caller's face will answer any questions about identity, he said.

The open-meetings issue should be resolved, he acknowledged, but limiting teleconferencing is not likely to hap-pen, Rines said. "The speed of teleconferencing makes it a worthwhile venture," he said. "If there is a question about its use at a particular meeting, any action taken at the meeting can be reversed. All action is subject to later amending."

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