The Indiana Publisher

I have a question from the county's library director. The library board members are going to have a walk-through in a construction site of a large addition to the Brookville Library. There will be a quorum present. They have invited me but they do not want the public to participate because it is a construction site and someone could get hurt. Can they do this without violating the Open Door Law? An exception to the definition of a "meeting" in the Open Door Law exists for an on-site inspection of a project. See I.C. 5-14-1.5-2(c) (2). They're OK with the inspec- tion while limiting who can go with them. Just remind them it's an inspection - they shouldn't approve changes to the project during the inspection. We have received two township annual reports and neither contain an affirmation concerning the report that has been published in past years. My first question is, has this info been dropped from the requirements to be published? My second question is when did the state give the townships an additional month to publish the annual reports? It used to be within four weeks after the third Tuesday follow- ing the first Monday in January. I conferred with the state Board of Accounts and we agree that the affirmation should be included based on IC 36-6-4-13, which requires the publication of the abstract created "on forms prescribed by the state Board of Accounts. The certification remains a part of the prescribed form, so it's publication should be required. I can't tell you when the deadline was moved, but I can confirm that the publication window doesn't begin until (this year on) Feb. 20, so you've got time to work it out with the townships. Please refresh my memory -- are any por- tion of EDC meetings subject to the Open door Law? Are they required to provide an agenda/minutes of their meet- ings? I assume you're talking about an Economic Development Corporation (not an Economic Development Commission). Most EDC were set up as non-profit entities to avoid the state's public access laws and replace the statutory Economic Development Commissions that were subject to the Open Door Law and Access to Public Records Act. To determine if the EDC is subject to the public access laws, you'd have to look at the contracts between the EDC and local government units to see if the money received from local taxing units to fund the EDC's are subsidies or fees-for-servic- es arrangements. I fear you will find a fee-for-service arrange- ment. The state appellate court has found that arrangement does not make the EDC a pub- lic agency subject to the state's public access laws. There's nothing to prevent the EDC from having open meetings and making records available, but it would be vol- untary, not mandated by state law. We have always felt that ownership of adver- tising copy, whether furnished by the customer or created by the newspaper art department, belonged to the customer/retailer. We thought the newspaper had a legal responsibility to turn over those (in this day and age) electronic files upon request. We have a new lake prop- erty directory customer (we have 100 lakes in Kosciusko County) that has given us the responsibility to sell the advertising and produce the directory for the Tippecanoe Lake property owners. Their past printer refused to give the electronic files for last year's directory to the lake associa- tion. Does the association have a right to the files? There is no state law that addresses the ques- tion, it's really a mat- ter between the newspaper or printer and the customer under contract law. I've always sug- gested to newspapers that if they want to retain ownership of the graphic design work, they better clearly spell it out to the customer because most customers have the expecta- tion that the artwork belongs to them since they paid for it and they feel they should be able to take it to other newspapers to use as they see fit. I would have suggested you talk to the client and see what his/her understanding was of the situation, but it appears the printer has already said no to the client. You or the client would have to see if ownership of the creative material was spelled out in the original con- tract or work order. Sounds like the old printer doesn't mind burning bridges with the client and ensuring the client doesn't want to do any future business with them. Send your questions to Steve Key, HSPA executive director and general counsel, skey@hspa.com HSPA Legal Hotline A Make sure ownership of artwork is spelled out in contract or work order Economic Development Commission might be subject to Open Door Law Q Page 8 The following ques- tions were submitted by The Brookville American and the Brookville Democrat, Carroll County Comet (Delphi), The Elkhart Truth, The Mail-Journal (Milford): On-site inspection is an exception to Open Door Law meeting definition February 2018 A Q Q A A Annual township reports should contain affirmation of previous reports Q For updates on the 2018 General Assembly, follow HSPA on Twitter & Facebook @OurRight2Know, Facebook.com/HoosierStatePressAssociation/

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