NARRAGANSETT — Taping Town Council and School Committee meetings and leaving the videocassette at the library for residents to take out has long been done as a courtesy to residents.

But that arrangement is changing in the wake of a brief exchange at a recent council meeting.

For the short term, the tapes will no longer be going to the library. And when they return, they will be in the form of DVDs.

Russell J. Matuszek, a regular council attendee, raised the issue during the public forum section of the council’s Sept. 15 meeting, telling members that the tapes are being kept at the library for six months and then thrown out, even though the town is supposed to keep them.

In response, Town Manager Jeffry Ceasrine said the town does not have to keep them because the official record of the meeting is the audiotape made by the town clerk.

But Ceasrine said yesterday that he and Town Clerk Anne M. Irons later checked with the secretary of state. They were told, he said, that if the town is recording a meeting, it must keep the videotape.

“They said, and this was very confusing to me, any record that you make that documents the meeting must be kept in perpetuity,” Ceasrine said. “I said there’s no requirement to videotape the meeting. She said that technically because it now is a record of the meeting, you have to keep it forever.”

Ceasrine said he has asked Town Solicitor Mark A. McSally to determine just what the town’s obligations are, but the town is now keeping the videotapes, which means they will not be available at library for people to take out. Plans are also in the works to record the meetings onto DVDs and make copies so that one can be kept as an official record and one can go to the library for people to take out, he said.

Matuszek, angered by Ceasrine’s response at the Sept. 15 council meeting, filed a complaint the next day with the Secretary of State.

R. Gwen Stearn, state archivist and public records administrator, wrote to Ceasrine on Sept. 19, saying the town “may be improperly disposing of videotapes of Town Council and School Committee meetings.”

Stearn cited state records retention rules that require recordings and tapes of municipal meetings and hearings to be “retained permanently” if they are not transcribed.

Matuszek said yesterday that he raised the issue because he thought the town should be keeping the videotapes and make copies available to the public.

“A VHS tape is a public record even though the state law doesn’t require the town to have them,” he said.

At the Sept. 15 meeting Matuszek also raised the issue of whether the council’s meetings will still be broadcast live now that towns will be sharing channels under a plan being implemented Rhode Island Public Broadcasting System.

Ceasrine said the town has not heard anything formal but would like to see the live broadcasts continue.

redgar@projo.com