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Government agency minutes are public in whatever form they exist

Q: One of the city councils we cover came out of executive session after one hour behind closed doors. A member then made a motion “to discuss what was discussed” in executive session. Another member seconded the motion. The question was put to a vote. It passed unanimously. But curiously, there was no further discussion. 
And to top it off, we asked for documents related to the matter and were told no such documents existed. However, as we eventually found out, the documents we requested did exist but we got them too late to include any details in our story. 
Need some ideas on what to write in our followup.

A: There’s no end to what you could write. Here are a few things to think about as you ponder how to treat the issue editorially:
1. The Texas Open Meetings Act + court rulings + Texas attorney general opinions require specificity of agenda items (see TOMA Handbook, pp. 26-28);
2. The Texas Open Meetings Act + court rulings + Texas attorney general opinions require that final actions (votes) be conducted in open session (see TOMA Handbook, pp. 39-43); and
3. Robert’s Rules of Order (pp. 40-43) says, “In putting the question the chair should make perfectly clear what the question is that the assembly is to decide.” 
Because of the city council’s apparent ignorance about or disrespect for the Texas Open Meetings Act, court rulings, Texas attorney general opinions and Robert’s Rules of Order, you might ask the folks who were in charge of the meeting if they have taken the AG’s required Texas Open Meetings Act Training at:
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/open-government/open-meetings-act-…
Next, on p. 59 of the Texas Public Information Act Handbook, you will find:
X. Records of Meetings
A. Minutes or Recordings of Open Meeting
And under those headers, Section 551.021 of the Government Code provides the following:
(a) A governmental body shall prepare and keep minutes or make a recording of each open meeting of the body.
(b) The minutes must:
(1) state the subject of each deliberation; and
(2) indicate each vote, order, decision, or other action taken.
Section 551.022 of the Government Code provides:
The minutes and recordings of an open meeting are public records and shall be available for public inspection and copying on request to the governmental body’s chief administrative officer or the officer’s designee.
If minutes are kept instead of a recording, the minutes should record every action taken by the governmental body. If open sessions of a commissioners court meeting are recorded, the recordings are available to the public under the Public Information Act. 
In continuation, on p. 64 of the TPIA Handbook, you will find:
C. Other Kinds of Information that May Not Be Withheld
As a general rule, a governmental body may not use one of the exceptions in the Act to withhold information that a statute other than the Act expressly makes public. For example, a governmental body may not withhold the minutes of an open meeting under the Act’s exceptions since such minutes are made public by statute.
And, on pp. 19-21 of the TPIA Handbook, find: How the Public Information Act Works, and under that header, this copy:
An officer for public information is not responsible for how a requestor uses public information or for the release of information after it is removed from a record as a result of an update, a correction, or a change of status of the person to whom the information pertains.
The officer for public information must “promptly” produce public information in response to an open records request. “Promptly” means that a governmental body may take a reasonable amount of time to produce the information, but may not delay. It is a common misconception that a governmental body may wait 10 business days before releasing the information. In fact, as discussed above, the requirement is to produce information “promptly.” What constitutes a reasonable amount of time depends on the facts in each case. The volume of information requested is highly relevant to what constitutes a reasonable period of time.
If the request is to inspect the information, the Public Information Act requires only that the officer in charge of public information make it available for review within the “offices of the governmental body.” Temporarily transporting records outside the office for official use does not trigger a duty to make the records available to the public wherever they may be.
Subsection 552.221(c) states:
If the requested information is unavailable at the time of the request to examine because it is in active use or in storage, the officer for public information shall certify this fact in writing to the requestor and set a date and hour within a reasonable time when the information will be available for inspection or duplication.
Open Records Decision No. 225 (1979) by Attorney General Mark White authoritatively discusses when requested information is in active use. 
https://www2.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/openrecords/46white/ord/…
Here is an excerpt from ORD-225:
This section has been interpreted to require prompt disclosure of information unless it is in “immediate active use.” See Open Records Decision No. 121 (1976). For example, if the secretary has transcribed shorthand notes into longhand to be typed, and the typist is in the process of typing them, then this information would be in immediate active use and a specific time when the material may be inspected should be scheduled in accordance with section 4 of the Act. On the other hand, if there is no prospect that they will be immediately typed or further processed, then we believe that the information is public and should be disclosed in that form. Of course, the secretary’s prompt performance of his or her duties in preparing minutes in final form will make it unnecessary for information about the meeting to be disclosed in a form other than the typed minutes intended to be placed in the minute book.
It is our decision that the minutes are public in whatever form they exist.
I put the previous sentence in boldface because, in the situation you describe, it is likely that the minutes of the meeting were no longer in active use at the time you requested a copy. If you read all of ORD-225, you and others who read it likely will agree with AG White’s conclusion, that meeting minutes are public information “in whatever form they exist.” 
While minutes in “whatever form” would even include something like shorthand scrawled in pencil on the back of a used no. 10 business-size envelope, the minutes most likely are going to be fixed in a 21st century digital medium. In any case, you ought to be able to use your smartphone to snap a digital image of the minutes in whatever form they exist.