MEMORANDUM

TO: Pete Sprague, Assembly President

Members, Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly

FROM: Betty Glick, Chairman, Policies & Procedures Committee

DATE: January 23, 2003

SUBJECT: Ordinance 2003-05, amending KPB Chapter 22.40 to eliminate the requirement that electronic recordings shall constitute the permanent record of assembly meetings

In 1998, the borough code was amended to provide that electronic recordings will constitute the official record of each assembly meeting and eliminated the requirement that the clerk take minutes of each meeting. By requiring that the electronic recordings constitute the official record of each meeting, the clerk is obligated to keep the tapes of all assembly meetings. This ordinance has been in effect for over four years, and it is clear that the permanent retention of all such tapes will seriously impact the borough's storage capacity over time. Also, degradation of tape quality will be an ongoing and potentially expensive problem.

The traditional method of recording assembly meetings is for the borough clerk to take minutes of those meetings. Tapes are then retained for several years, but the official record is the minutes.

This ordinance would reinstate the former code provisions which provided that the clerk would take minutes of each meeting, that the assembly shall approve the minutes at the following meeting, and it would eliminate the provision that electronic recordings constitute the official record of each meeting. It varies in one respect from the pre-1998 code in that it does not require the assembly president to sign the approved minutes. Instead, it requires the clerk to attest that the minutes were approved by the assembly. This is to simplify administration of the minutes and is comparable with practice elsewhere in this State.