FAIRHOPE, Ala. — At its April 14 meeting, the City Council instructed the city attorney to draft language for a new policy to provide greater access to documents it uses during council meetings.

Those council packets, or notebooks, contain the unapproved minutes from the prior meeting, draft ordinances, financial and other reports, bid information and contracts, letters from companies and individuals, and other documents, all arranged behind tabs corresponding to each item on that evening’s council agenda.

Currently, the council does not allow the city clerk to release that information to the public at the same time that council members receive it. The information is available for review, but not copying, prior to the council meeting itself. Copies are available after the meeting adjourns.

“Citizens need to know what their officials are doing, and how can they know what they’re doing if they don’t have access to the same information their delegated representative have,” said Bill Chamberlin, director of the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project in Gainesville, Fla., and a law professor at the University of Florida specializing in freedom of information issues.

“It is hard enough to understand what is going on in a meeting if you have the appropriate materials in front of you.”

But that policy may change soon.

Following a Fairhope Courier story last month about the current policy, the council instructed the assistant city clerk at its March 24 meeting to prepare a report on how other cities in Baldwin County handle public access to their council packets.

The council considered that report Monday, and took steps to provide greater access to council packets by having the city attorney draft language for a new policy and research some issues regarding what records are public.

“My opinion is that we ought to be very transparent and give everything we have that we’re going to be using (at the meetings), and provide it to the public and media so long as it meets the requirement of public records under city ordinance and state law,” Councilman Dan Stankoski said after the meeting. “I think eventually everything should be put online.”

The report prepared by Assistant City Clerk Lisa Hanks surveyed all cities and towns in the county regarding their policies about council packet availability to the public and media.

In Daphne, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, all the council packet information is put online and available to the public before the council meeting. In Bay Minette, the packet is available the Friday before the Monday meeting. In Spanish Fort and Loxley, the materials are available at the meeting.

The other municipalities have policies similar to the current one in Fairhope.

“People have a right to know what kind of laws and issues we are considering,” Stankoski said. “Everything we do is going to have some impact on somebody, and they need to be aware of it and have access to that information if they want it.”

Some of the information Hanks provided to the City Council indicated that the media does not regularly cover council meetings in some cities and towns, nor has it ever requested the council packet information in some of those surveyed.

During a dialogue with the Fairhope Courier seeking that information pursuant to a public records request last week, Fairhope City Clerk Geniece Johnson said that during her 14 years of employment with the city, “your newspaper has been the only newspaper that has requested the contents of the City Council notebooks.”