Opinion ID: 1857262
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: City Beautiful Commission Meetings.

Text: Secondly the Mayor testified that the City Beautiful Commission dinners were actually annual work sessions. The City Beautiful Commission is composed of the Mayor's and the City aldermen's wives and various other volunteers. All are non-salaried. The commission is responsible for beautification projects in Olive Branch. Olive Branch argues that Mississippi Code Annotated § 17-3-1 gives a municipality the discretion to set aside, appropriate and expend moneys ... for the purpose of advertising and bringing into favorable notice the opportunities, possibilities and resources of such municipality. Also, Mississippi Code Annotated § 17-3-3 allows different forms of advertising. Such advertising includes newspaper[s] and magazine[s], literature, publicity, expositions, public entertainment, or other form of advertising or publicity which in the judgment of [the municipality] will be helpful toward advancing the moral, financial and other interests of such municipality. Miss. Code Ann. § 17-3-3. The Auditor counters that, as with the police dinners, there was no mention in the minutes of the Board meetings for such expenditures. The purpose of the law that duly elected members of a board must enter any decision for the expenditure of the municipalities' money is because an individual member of the board or agent thereof would be capable of binding the board and expending the public taxpayers' money without the benefit of the consent of the board as a whole which was elected and responsible for such purposes. In sum, the policy of protecting the public's funds for use by and for the public is paramount to other individual rights which may be involved. Butler, 659 So.2d at 579. [T]he general law of Mississippi is that boards of supervisors can act only by and through orders placed upon the minutes, and this requirement is so stringent that an order actually entered upon the minutes is nevertheless void if the minutes are not signed by the president of the board, or, in his ability, by the vice president for the board, within the time prescribed by law... . Warren County Port Comm'n v. Farrell Const. Co., 395 F.2d 901, 904 (5th Cir.1968) (citing Gardner v. Price, 197 Miss. 831, 21 So.2d 1 (1945); Brand v. Board of Supervisors of Newton County, 198 Miss. 131, 21 So.2d 579 (1945)). The Mayor and the Board of Alderman approved no statement for the purpose of the expenditure in the minutes of the board meeting. Olive Branch is correct in stating the Mississippi Code Annotated §§ 17-3-1, -3 allows public funds to be disbursed for the purpose of advertising and bringing into favorable notice the opportunities, possibilities, and resources of the city. Nevertheless, [a] Board of supervisors can act only as a body, and its act must be evidenced by an entry on its minutes. The minutes of the board of supervisors are the sole and exclusive evidence of what the board did. Board of Supervisors Adams County v. Giles, 219 Miss. 245, 259, 68 So.2d 483 (1953) (quoting Smith v. Board of Supervisors of Tallahatchie County, 124 Miss. 36, 41, 86 So. 707, 709 (1920)). See also Martin v. Newell, 198 Miss. 809, 23 So.2d 796 (1945). Because of the requirement of documentation duly noted on the minutes, the Auditor's exception to the City Beautiful Commission lunches is proper.