Like it or not, Zoom meetings of public bodies may again become more frequent.
At 2021 regular session the Louisiana legislature amended the statute providing for exceptions to the open meeting law during gubernatorially declared disaster or emergency.
After a required gubernatorial declaration, here are the rules for a Zoom meeting:
1. The presiding officer of a public body must certify that an in-person meeting would be detrimental of "the public health, safety and welfare of the public."
2. A notice and agenda must be posted online at least 24 hours before the meeting and sent to every news outlet of any type that broadcasts or publishes in the geographic area.
3. The public body must provide a way for the public to participate and submit comments online.
4. Public bodies must also limit their meetings to matters "related to the public body's response to the disaster or emergency" or that "are critical to the health, safety, or welfare of the public."
5. PUBLIC bodies may also meet and consider matters that if delayed "will cause curtailment of vital public services or severe economic dislocation or hardship" as well as "matters that are critical to continuation of the business of the public body and that are not able to be postponed to another time."
Votes taken during Zoom meetings that do not comply with this statute can be judicially overturned.
The statute does NOT provide an definitions of its critical terms and thus they are open to interpretation of the public body meeting by Zoom.
