The Indiana Publisher

Page 8 October 2021 school board members on Thursday, Aug. 19. That morning, Herald Republican Editor Mike Marturello received a notice from Fremont administration that the school board would be holding a closed-door executive session later that evening. Marturello contacted Superintendent Bill Stitt to discuss the notice, as Indiana Open Door Law requires government agencies to provide at least 48 hours notice of a meeting and, in the case of executive sessions, provide an Indiana Code citation providing one of the listed exceptions allow- ing government boards to meet in private. Fremont administrators said the notice had been made in error and that it was holding an "emergency" session, which is allowable under law with the caveat that such meet- ings much be open to the public. The Herald Republican arranged for a staff reporter to attend the meeting to listen to the discussion about possible changes in the dis- trict's COVID-19 policy following a small outbreak of new cases in its buildings. When the reporter arrived at the meeting, she found that board members and administrators were already inside meeting and was told that the meeting was closed and she could not attend. Marturello also stopped at the school and spoke with Stitt, who denied both journal- ists entry to the meeting. KPC Media Group filed a formal complaint with the public access counselor's office on Aug. 25, alleging a violation of the Open Door Law. The complaint was received by The following questions were submitted by resident of Franklin County, USAToday, The Pulaski County Journal (Winamac), The Republican (Danville). At the Brookville Town Council meeting, a question was asked about how the law firm was paid for a feasibility study concerning pos- sible annexation of land north of Brookville. An attorney for the firm said the contract between her law firm and the town was not a public record. Is that correct? Any contract Brookville signs is a disclosable pub- lic record — even with a law firm. Payments to the law firm also will be disclosable public records. The Howard County Health Department in Howard County tells me that it is their policy not to release COVID as a cause of death under an exemption for communicable diseases. Basically, they are giving me the full forms for names that I requested, just with what appears to be a blank field the cause of death lines. We've not had any difficulty getting COVID as a cause of death from other counties, so I wanted to ask your thoughts on whether this is a legitimate exemption. I don't think redacting the cause of death, when it's COVID, is the proper appli- cation of the law concerning com- municable diseases. I've attached a column I wrote in July of 2020 when this issue first cropped up, https://bit.ly/3C6OppU. The con- fidentiality provisions in Indiana law generally were tied to AIDS/ HIV when there was a stigma to that disease. The same stigma does not come close to applying to COVID-19. You can also refer to the Public Access Counselor's opinion No. 93 for 2020, which talks about death certificates and how they should be disclosable public records. I received a state- ment from an anti-mask protester in part (about 5% of the statement) explaining why that specific group is protest- ing a mask mandate imposed at a school. The other 95% of the statement states as fact the num- bers of cases, quarantines, and numbers of students and staff that wore a mask to school prior to the mandate both this year and last year as supporting "evidence" of why they are protesting. The state- ment does not provide any source for this information. I plan to quote the portion stating why they are protesting (which does not contain any claimed facts) and leave the rest out. I do not want the quote to appear out of context, but I do not want to publish any "facts" that I can't confirm as true. I also plan to reference the school's decision in the same article. Am I approaching this fairly? I think there are a couple of options to put the "facts" into context: Reach out to the protester and ask what the source was for the statistics. You can either include it or not. You can reach out to the school and let them know what the protesters are saying is a "fact" and give the school the opportunity to confirm the statis- tic, put it into context, refute the statistic with their own statistic or be puzzled because there wasn't any such statistic gath- ered and question whether the statistic has any validity. This also gives school oppor- tunity to explain why the statistic doesn't prove anything about the efficacy of the masks because there were other variables in play. There is a candidate for county sheriff who wants to sponsor a column in our newspaper. The column has nothing to do with politics — it's music/entertain- ment information and reviews. The column would be written by someone who has written such a column for us before, but without a sponsor. Would there be any disclaimers needed for a sponsorship such as this if it is being paid for by the campaign Unusual question, which made me check with state election com- mission to make sure I had the right answer. If your candidate's sponsor- ship ID in the column mentions he/she is a candidate for sheriff, then it falls under the scope of the law as an election ad and you'll need the disclaimer line stating it was paid for by the candidate or candidate's com- mittee, etc., just as you would for an ad saying vote for Joe Smith. Send your questions to Steve Key, HSPA executive director and general counsel, skey@ hspa.com or call (317) 624- 4427. Q Health department's redacting COVID as cause of death is not proper use of law HSPA Legal Hotline Q Town's documents, payments to law firm are disclosable records A Reach out to protester for source of 'facts' listed in statement A Sheriff candidate's sponsored column might need a disclaimer Q Q A A Open Door Continued from Page 3 See Open Door,page 9

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