Summary vs Verbatim Minutes
I would like to approach Town Council about doing summary minutes opposed to verbatim minutes at our Town Council meetings and all of our Boards. I would like to do a spreadsheet to show what most localities are doing and the size of their locality.
Any direction on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.
Lesley G. King
Town Clerk
Town of Smithfield
Brigitte Luckett
Aug. 22, 2019I have done both, but for several years now my minutes have been a summary of the meeting. I try to keep the "chit-chat" and "he said/she said" bits to a minimum, and focus the minutes on who, what when, where, and the vote. Our meetings are recorded, so if anyone wants all the details they can certainly request a free copy of the recording. During meetings, I try to write down the time that each agenda item was discussed, so if someone wants to listen to the recording, the section they want is easy to find. And of course, if you already have live-streaming software, it's pretty easy for anyone to watch the portions they are interested in whenever they like. I think audio and video recordings make verbatim minutes an obsolete and unnecessary burden for clerks.
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