More Flexibility Brings New Challenges for Remote Board Meetings

In 2025, the Minnesota Open Meeting Law was updated to allow a board member regularly to attend and participate in board meetings from a remote location that is not open to the public.

Although public bodies must still provide notice of the remote meeting, the meeting notice no longer must include details about remote locations.

Instead, the notice must only provide notice of the regular meeting location and state that members may be participating in the meeting by interactive technology.

These changes have raised some interesting questions related to posting and public access to remote meetings.

Posting the Remote Participation Notice

Other than the contents of the notice, the revised Section 13D.02, subd. 4 on remote meetings is vague on how the notice of remote participation should be given.

From a risk management standpoint, the prudent course of action is to continue posting the notice about remote participation using the special meeting notice time frames and the method. A special meeting notice generally requires posting a written notice on the entity’s principal bulletin board or usual meeting room door three days before the meeting.

This is based on the premise that the place of the regular meeting is different when a board member attends remotely. Under the Open Meeting Law, when a public body decides to hold a regular meeting at a time or place different from the time or place stated in its schedule of regular meetings, it must give the same notice of the meeting as for a special meeting.

To make this process easier for staff, the Minnesota Department of Administration’s Data Practices Office (DPO), which is tasked with providing guidance about the Open Meeting Law, suggests that boards establish a procedure that requires board members to notify the chair or applicable county staff at least three days in advance of a meeting about whether they will attend remotely.

Providing the Public Remote Access

Whenever interactive technology is used to conduct a meeting, a public body must allow the public to monitor the meeting electronically from a remote location to the extent it is practical.

Does the entity still need to provide the public the ability to monitor the meeting remotely if the board member who intended to be remote shows up at the regular meeting location instead?

When posed this question, the DPO noted that in general, there is no requirement under the Open Meeting Law to provide the public with remote access to the meeting when all board members are in attendance at the regular meeting location. As such, it may not be a violation not to livestream and provide remote access in this circumstance.

The bigger challenge may be criticism and concern from the public that the board is not being transparent when it does not provide remote access after giving notice that it would do so. One way to counter this expectation may be to inform the public of where they can find the link on the day of the meeting, and offer a reason the link is not there (i.e., no remote board member attendance).

However, DPO noted that it may be a better practice for entities to continue to offer the public a remote viewing option once the board has posted that it will have members participating remotely.

This practice may be even more important for boards that routinely post before every meeting that members may be participating by interactive technology. Some entities have adopted this approach so as to provide board members with maximum flexibility for situations such as sudden illness or inclement weather where a three-day notice would be impossible.

DPO takes the position that boards should be offering maximum transparency if its members want the maximum flexibility for how to attend the meeting. In other words, if meetings are consistently noticed so that members have the ability to attend remotely, the board should always be offering a remote viewing option so there is no confusion for the public about how they can observe the board’s work.

DPO noted that although it may not be a violation of the Open Meeting Law to cancel a remote viewing option, any time a public body deviates from what it says it will do, there may be questions from the public about whether the body is being truly transparent.

DPO also noted that when considering compliance with the Open Meeting Law, it is good to keep in mind that the Minnesota Supreme Court has indicated that the law should be interpreted in favor of transparency.

Also, it may be unreasonable for the public not to know whether remote access will be available up until the meeting starts based on board member in-person attendance.

Further Guidance

Members are encouraged to review Minnesota Statutes Section 13D.02 of the Open Meeting Law to confirm that their remote meeting attendance practices remain consistent with the law. Although some areas of the law changed in 2025, others remained the same, such as including the names of members and reasons for attending remotely in the meeting minutes.

Members with questions regarding their approach to remote meeting attendance are encouraged to consult with their legal counsel.

The Data Practices Office also responds to Open Meeting Law questions on an informal basis via telephone or email. More information about the Data Practices Office.