Featured Inquiry (08/11/08)
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Question:
May county planning commission and board of adjustment meetings be shifted to different locations around the county?
Answer:
While the county commissioners are required to hold their regular meetings in the county seat (RCW 36.32.080), we can find no similar language relating either to planning commissions or boards of adjustment. The Open Public Meetings Act, when referring to the places of meetings, merely states in part:
The governing body of a public agency shall provide the time for holding regular meetings by ordinance, resolution, bylaws, or by whatever other rule is required for the conduct of business by that body. Unless otherwise provided for in the act under which the public agency was formed, meetings of the governing body need not be held within the boundaries of the territory over which the public agency exercise. (Emphasis added.)
The term “regular meeting” means “recurring meetings held in accordance with a periodic schedule declared by statute or rule.” RCW 42.30.075. For state agencies, the agencies are supposed to give notice to the code reviser regarding the time and place of their regular meetings; there is no similar requirement for non-state agencies. However, as a practical matter, other agencies do list the time and place of their regular meetings when they adopt a rule, resolution or bylaw setting the schedule for regular meetings.
In our opinion, the planning commission and/or the board of adjustment could meet at different locations throughout the county. One way to accomplish that would be to establish a rule indicating that the commission/board will meet on the first Tuesday (or whatever other day that may be selected) of each month at ___ in city A, at ___ on the second Tuesday of each month in city B, etc. The alternative would be to provide notice of each meeting, similar to what is done for special meetings.