PITTSBORO - A Chatham County activist group submitted a four-page memo to county commissioners Monday, listing nearly a dozen concerns about a proposed policy on how closed-session minutes are released.

The draft policy "seems to contain standards that are more restrictive than existing statutory provisions," wrote John Graybeal of Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities. "CCEC recommends that any such provisions be rejected."

Kevin Whiteheart, the county's new attorney, said he wrote the policy at the request of the commissioners. He said they wanted to unify the document release process so the county can get records out faster. It's meant to "supplement" the state law, not create extra restrictions, he said.

Two media law experts said last week the plan may violate state public records laws, which apply to all local governments.

"It's not up to local governments to supplement the law," said John Bussian, a Raleigh lawyer and lobbyist for the N.C. Press Association.

At a public hearing Monday night, Graybeal, acting as CCEC's spokesman, asked whether the commissioners even needed such a plan and encouraged them not to go into closed sessions.

But if they were going to have a policy on the release of closed-session minutes, it should comply with the law, he said.

Among Graybeal's concerns was the county's advisory boards. Those boards, such as the environmental review board, are made up of volunteers and offer suggestions to the commissioners.

"I don't know how an advisory board would go into closed session," Graybeal said.

Graybeal questioned a section of the policy that states commissioners should vote on when to release minutes, and minutes should not be released until they have been typed, reviewed and approved by the commissioners.

State public records laws "do not protect minutes from release merely because they are not typed," Graybeal wrote. "Draft minutes, whether or not they have been approved, must be released unless 'public inspection would frustrate the purpose of the closed session.' "

Graybeal said commissioners should not require public document requests in writing, as the proposed policy strongly recommends. The law does not require a written request, he said.

The policy also states, "If a party requests minutes to be placed in a certain format or combined with other records, then the party should be informed that no record exists."

In response, Graybeal wrote, "The party, rather than being told no record exists, [should be] informed instead that the document exists in a different format and will be produced in that format."

Whiteheart told commissioners Monday night that public records laws are not well defined and are difficult to understand.

Commissioners asked Whiteheart to work with Graybeal to write another draft of the policy, incorporating Graybeal's comments and other written comments submitted by residents.