Are Schor's advisory board actions illegal without minutes?

Are Schor's advisory board actions legal without minutes?

November 19, 2021

This is from the Lansing city ordinances:

The minutes of all board meetings shall be filed in the office of the Clerk as a public record. No official action taken by any board at any meeting shall be valid or effective until a copy of the minutes at which the action was taken is filed with the Clerk.

This page on the City website lists boards and commissions. Four are "Mayor's" boards/commissions and three of those are "Advisory":

Mayor's Advisory Commission on Sustainability
Mayor's Arts & Culture Commission
Mayor's Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council
Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Board (NAB)

It appears that the mayor's advisory boards have not been filing meeting minutes with the City Clerk. When I asked the administrator of one such board for meeting minutes, she told me that advisory boards are not subject to Michigan's Open Meetings Act. Also, this page on the City website provides links to the agendas and minutes of the various City entities that have meetings and keep minutes. The Mayor's Arts & Culture Commission is the only "Mayor's" board/commission on this list, and the link doesn't work.

It is true that advisory boards/commissions are not subject to Michigan's Open Meetings Act. While they are not mentioned at all in the law itself, the Open Meetings Act Handbook says

Advisory committees and the OMA – the OMA does not apply to committees and subcommittees composed of less than a quorum of the full public body if they "are merely advisory or only capable of making 'recommendations concerning the exercise of governmental authority.'"

The city ordinance quoted at the top applies to all boards/commissions, so it supersedes the exclusion in the Open Meetings Act Handbook. The minutes of all board meetings must be filed in the office of the Clerk as a public record. Was no one in the City leadership aware of this? How long has this gone on? Was it really ignorance or did they know, but preferred to hide from public view what goes on in these meetings?

Without meeting minutes, were any official actions taken by advisory boards legal?

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