The Athens-Clarke County Government Operations Committee on Oct. 20 approved a set of minor corrections and clarifications to the Boards and Commissions (BAC) manual and voted to permit limited staff corrections for scrivener errors.

Committee members said the revisions respond to comments submitted after the manual returned from the full commission for review. The document presented to the committee included Commissioner Myers’ suggested edits in black and staff responses in red; most items were accepted and the updated manual will go back through the full cycle for final adoption.

The manual text that the committee reviewed includes the membership limitation language: “Unless specifically identified by ordinance, ACCGov employees and elected officials may not serve on any BAC.” Committee members discussed a separate sentence in the manual noting that, “as a rule of the commission, no elected commissioner can serve on 2 or more BACs simultaneously.” Staff noted that specific ordinances (for example, for the Pension Board or Preferred Comp Board) already specify when commission membership is included, and that those ordinances effectively govern exceptions.

The committee accepted edits to selection procedures for vacancies, adding a note that the process for selecting applicants “when there are multiple open positions on a BAC will be revised further at a later date.” Committee members said the change is intended to give flexibility as the clerk of commission role transitions.

On notice and minutes, staff added a citation to the Open Meetings Act and expanded the minutes requirement. The revised text makes explicit that “minutes must be taken at any meeting of a BAC, including meetings at which a formal action could occur,” to avoid implying that minutes are required only when a vote occurs.

The committee also approved language assigning BAC liaisons responsibility for assuring that agendas and minutes are posted to the public in a timely manner. An updated cover page was sent to the communications department for formatting.

Committee members discussed whether staff should be authorized to make minor, nonpolicy “scrivener’s error” changes without returning to committee for every edit; the committee voted to give staff limited authority to implement minor corrections between formal cycles to avoid burdening the committee with purely editorial changes.

A motion to approve the revisions and the limited staff authority carried after a voice vote; the item will return to the full commission in the normal cycle for final action.

The committee also approved the Sept. 15 minutes at the start of the meeting.

Committee members asked that the clerk of commission (incoming Nov. 9) be given the draft to review and offer any suggested modifications before the full-commission review.