On a summer morning this week, the glass-enclosed notice board on the front porch of Harvard’s Town Hall was crowded with more than a dozen three-by-five-inch slips of paper, each a handwritten announcement of an upcoming meeting of a town board or committee. But if you wanted to know what members of any of these official bodies planned to discuss, you would have been out of luck. The only posting that included an agenda was the one for the out-of-town Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC).

On July 1, however, this will change. The notice board will likely be moved, and behind its doors, residents can expect a much different collection of documents. Gone will be the handwritten forms, and in their place will be detailed agendas that list, in some detail and in larger type, the items of business that—in the words of a new law—the chairman of any official town body “reasonably anticipates will be discussed.”

The change is just one of several that town officials will make in the next two weeks to comply with a rewritten Massachusetts Open Meeting Law that was approved in 2009 by the legislature and signed by Governor Deval Patrick as part of a state ethics reform package. Among the new rules most relevant to Harvard are the following:

• Town board and committee meeting notices must list the topics their chairmen expect to discuss. This does not prohibit the introduction of emergency items (though what constitutes an emergency will no doubt be grounds for debate), new business, or issues raised by residents during public comment, but the law clearly means to prevent surprises that might keep residents from taking part in decisions that affect them.
   
• All boards must post their agendas at least 48 hours in advance of a meeting; weekends and legal holidays are no longer included in the 48 hours. Thus, the agenda of the Board of Selectmen (BOS), which meets on alternate Tuesdays, will typically need to post its agenda by Thursday. Meeting notices must be “conspicuously visible to the public at all hours,” including times Town Hall is closed.
   
• Any document discussed at a meeting must be available to the public afterward, including photos, maps, handwritten motions, or even materials, such as a newspaper clipping, brought to a meeting by the public. Meeting minutes must more completely report what happened, summarizing the essence of discussions that took place and listing every document that was referenced.
   
• Unless the information compromises their deliberations, board chairmen must provide more details on what is to be discussed in an executive session and must periodically review its minutes to determine when they can be released. If the topic is the performance or behavior of an individual, that person now has the right to an independent recording or transcript of the meeting.

For Town Administrator Tim Bragan, Town Clerk Janet Vellante, and Executive Secretary Julie Doucet, the new rules for agendas and public documents are likely to be the most demanding. Other town boards and committees that have rarely or never posted agendas—or minutes—are now required by law to do so, which will add to the work of their chairmen and secretaries. For example, a quick look at Harvard’s official website this week revealed that of the more than 30 boards and committees listed there, only eight had ever posted an agenda this year. Among the missing: the Finance Committee and the School Committee.

In an interview this week, Bragan said that while he was waiting for guidelines from the state’s attorney general, who is now the enforcement officer for the Open Meeting Law (replacing the regional district attorneys), he and Doucet were already making plans. BOS meeting minutes and documents will be stored in Doucet’s office. Each meeting will have its own binder (in theory there will be 26 per year) and they will all be available for examination on site by anyone during normal Town Hall hours. All town boards and committees must also submit their materials to Vellante, who said this week she plans to store the materials in her office at Town Hall. “We really have no other place to put them right now,” she said this week.

“The idea is to make things as open as they can get,” said Bragan. “I think different people are going to focus on different aspects [of the law], whether it’s the [new rules for] executive session minutes or something else.” While his focus is the BOS and town departments, he said, there are many other official groups that don’t provide agendas or other information on their activities on a regular basis. “People will now know with some assurance—I won’t say with complete assurance—what will be discussed at a meeting and then be able to determine whether or not to attend.”

As the Boston Globe reported in late May, many Massachusetts municipalities have asked for more time to implement the law’s new provisions. The state senate budget bill contains a provision to delay their effective date until Nov. 1; the Press was unable to determine whether the House plans to include a similar waiver in its legislation.

As for the town notice board, its new location is yet to be determined. The new law says it must be well-lighted as well as accessible to people with handicaps. One idea is to remove the fire escape on the northwest side of Town Hall and install it there. Another possible location, said Bragan, is the side of the old fire station. Either spot would require the permission of the Historical Commission, with whom Bragan is consulting. But new guidelines from the attorney general might allow other solutions. A binder containing notices for all upcoming meetings might be placed in the town police station, which is open at all hours. Or perhaps, as some towns have proposed, the agendas could be flashed to passersby on a large flat screen TV, placed among the community event signs on the town Common.