The Greenwood town board held a special meeting on June 20, to discuss the Minnesota Data Practices Act. The meeting was not covered by a newspaper reporter and it was not videotaped, since the board only approved videotaping regular meetings through the end of this year on a trial basis. Since rumors have already started about why we held the meeting, I thought I’d write a letter to let the public know what transpired.
At our May 14 board meeting, Supervisor Bassing recommended that we adopt the MN Data Practices Act to help in obtaining grants and to be transparent. By unanimous vote, the town board did approve a motion to follow the act. Since that meeting, the clerk received several data requests in one week. After speaking to the township attorney Mike Couri and the MN Association of Township Attorney Steve Fenske, they both recommended that the board immediately rescind compliance with the Data Practices Act. I provided the following information at the special meeting:
Data practices is a complicated topic that requires organization of data, attention to a large body of state law, adoption of local policies and careful administration of those policies.
Townships usually need the help of their town attorney to properly administer these laws.
Townships outside the seven-country metro areas are NOT subject to the MN Data Practices Act.
The act is difficult and expensive to administer, requiring dedicated staff and attorneys to properly manage.
As most townships operate with no employees and elected officials working part-time, these townships lack the expertise and resources to properly administer the act.
Towns that are not subject to the MN Data Practices Act still should provide data to the public as appropriate, but are allowed more flexibility in doing so.
The data practices act requires the town board to appoint a “Responsible Authority” and “Data Practices Compliance Official.”
The town board must adopt a procedure or policy describing the processes the township will use to comply with the act and consult their attorney before adopting any policy.
The MN Data Practices Act imposes both civil and criminal penalties for violations of the requirements of the act.
If an entity requires the township to be subject to the Data Practices Act for a grant, a resolution would be adopted for that one grant only.
Participating in the Data Practices Act would also likely have a negative impact on the insurance coverage with the MN Association of Townships Insurance Trust. Not only has Greenwood subjected itself to liability, they have subjected all other townships that are part of the insurance trust.
Because of these reasons that I reviewed at the June 20 special meeting, I made a motion to immediately rescind the motion adopting the data practices act. The motion was approved by myself, Supervisor Skubic and Supervisor Gilbert. Supervisor Bassing and Supervisor Stoehr voted against the motion, so the motion was adopted 3-2.
To date, the majority of the current Greenwood Town Board has worked hard to approve transparency. Agenda packets are provided on the Greenwood Township Website and on the Greenwood Township Facebook Page, prior to the meetings. Regular meetings are videotaped and available on the Greenwood Township Facebook Page. Cameras were turned back on at the Town Hall and two additional cameras were installed.
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about Greenwood Township. My email is lois.roskoski@greenwoodtownshipmn.us.
Lois Roskoski
Chair, Greenwood
Township
Editor’s note: Contrary to the board chair’s statement, the Timberjay’s David Colburn did attend the meeting, and see the story on page 3.