What counts as a meeting in Massachusetts: deliberation, quorum and email

This guide explains the law in plain words; it is not legal advice. For a question about your board, ask your town counsel.
By Clarivis · Checked against G.L. c. 30A, § 18 on Mon, Oct 26, 2026.

What is a meeting under the Open Meeting Law?

A meeting is a deliberation by a public body. The law does not ask whether the members are in one room, whether anyone votes, or whether a notice went up.

The list that follows that sentence in the statute is the short list of things that are not meetings. Two of them are covered below. The public body can be any of these:

Every meeting of a public body is open to the public unless the body closes part of it for a reason the law lists. For closing part of a meeting, see the executive session guide.

Does an email between board members count as a meeting?

It can. The definition of deliberation names email.

Three phrases do the work. "Any medium" means phone, text, chat and email are all covered. "Quorum" means the communication must reach a quorum of the body, a point taken up below. "Any public business within its jurisdiction" means the subject need not be on an agenda.

The same sentence of the statute takes some things out:

So the clerk may email the agenda, a date or a report to the whole board. The line is crossed when a member adds an opinion. In practice, the safe course between meetings:

• Use email to send the agenda, a date, a time or a place, and nothing more.
• Send reports and documents without comment.
• Do not "reply all" with a view on an item the board will decide. Save it for the meeting, where the public can hear it.
• If someone starts a discussion by email, do not answer on the thread. Say it belongs at the next meeting.

What is a quorum?

For a five-member board, a quorum is three. On a five-member board, communication between two members is not, by itself, a deliberation under this definition, because it does not reach a quorum. Your board's charter, a special law or another authorizing provision may set a different number, so check yours.

Does a site visit count as a meeting?

Not if the members do not deliberate there.

A quorum can walk a site together. If they start discussing public business within the board's jurisdiction, the visit has become a meeting and needed a notice.

What if members attend a conference or social event together?

The same rule applies. Being in the same place is not a meeting.

The safe course: at a conference, a ribbon cutting or a reception, members do not discuss among themselves an item their own board will decide. The statute lists other exclusions, including a quorum's attendance at another public body's properly noticed meeting, so long as the visiting members communicate only by open participation in that meeting and do not deliberate, and a town meeting session; read the full definition in G.L. c. 30A, § 18.

Does a subcommittee have its own quorum?

In our reading, yes. The definition of a public body names a "subcommittee", and adds:

So a subcommittee is itself a public body. Its quorum is a simple majority of its own members unless other law says otherwise. A quorum of the subcommittee communicating about its work is then a deliberation by the subcommittee, with its own notice and minutes.

Checklist

Some items are the safe course, not the statute's words.

Between meetings

• Email and phone among members only to share the agenda, scheduling information, reports or documents, with no opinions.
• No "reply all" with views on business the board will decide.
• No chain of conversations that brings a quorum into one discussion.

Before a work session or workshop

• Noticed like any other meeting, with the topics listed (see the notice guide).
• Minutes will be kept (see the minutes guide).

At the meeting

• Every member recorded present or absent.
• Count the members present against your board's quorum before business that needs a vote.

At a site visit or another group's event

• Members do not deliberate among themselves about their own board's business.

What the law does not settle

Questions to take to your town counsel; this guide does not answer them.

• Whether a series of one-to-one conversations or emails, each among fewer than a quorum, that together bring a quorum to a decision is a deliberation.
• Whether a one-way email from the chair or clerk to every member, with no replies, becomes a deliberation when it carries an opinion.
• Whether a vacant seat counts toward "the members" in working out a majority.
• Whether a given working group was "created to advise or make recommendations to a public body", and so is a subcommittee.
• Which quorum number applies when the charter, a special law and the board's own rules disagree.

How Clarivis helps

Related guides

This guide for other states

• Connecticut
• Maine
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Texas
• Vermont

Sources

• G.L. c. 30A, § 18, Definitions: malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleIII/Chapter30A/Section18