The Indiana Publisher

HSPA Legal Hotline The following questions were submitted by Parke County Sentinel (Rockville), The Herald-Times (Bloomington), The Herald (Jasper): The agenda for the Indiana University Board of Trustees meeting had less information than usual. It usually includes descriptions of building designs when those are up for approval. The latest agenda just lists "Project and Design Approvals." That's it. What are the trustees required to include in their meeting agendas and what are your thoughts on this situation? My initial thought is that the university leader- ship wants to put its spin on board items to steer votes in the direction it wants the board to go. Newspaper stories prior to the meeting may take the board into a different direction with the questions they might ask and vote they might make. By reducing amount of info included in agenda, university leadership hopes to ward off those pesky board meeting pre- view stories. On the legal side, the Open Door Law doesn't even require the use of an agenda, but only requires the agenda, if used, be posted on the meeting room door prior to the start of the meeting. So reducing the amount of information on the agenda is no violation. (It may be a story as to why leadership is doing it and whether the trustees mind that leadership may be trying to manipulate the flow of informa- tion to them. From a reporting standpoint, you may want to determine when staff collects materials that are sent to the trustees prior to the meeting. It may be on a Monday, mailed or emailed on a Tuesday, prior to a Friday meeting. The board packet, except for records cre- ated for an executive session, are disclosable public records when created, so you could ask for a copy of the board packet on Monday or Tuesday and receive the records quickly since we're talking a quick visit to the copy machine or an email with attachments to you. Leadership interested in trans- parency should have no problem with a staffer just making an extra copy (minus executive ses- sion materials) or extra email dis- tribution. Leadership interested in making it tougher for you to do an advance story will attempt to throw up some roadblocks to your access to the board packet. I have seen both ends of the spectrum with public school dis- tricts going back to my days as a reporter in the late 1970s. Is there some distinc- tion as to population in the requirements for towns to publish their annual financial reports? We have just discovered that two of our smaller towns did not publish last year, or yet this year. My contact at the state Board of Accounts said they are not aware of any exception for small towns, so ball is in the towns' court as to statuto- ry basis for them not to run public notice that is required by law. My advice is to always ask a government official for the Indiana Code citation he/she is relying upon to not publish the public notice advertisement. I'm always happy to check it out if a legal basis for non-publication is given. I have a question about minutes and memoranda. Has either the public access counselor issued an opin- ion or the courts ruled on what is "within a reasonable period of time" before they are made avail- able to the public? And, if so, what was the opinion or ruling. I don't know about a PAC opinion on the sub- ject, but I'm sure Luke Britt or his assistant Kris Cundiff could provide that answer. The thing about minutes, is they might not be created until days before the next meeting and are basically an edited version of the "memoranda." The Open Door Law doesn't even require the creation of minutes. But the Open Door Law does require memoranda to be kept during the meeting. Since memo- randa is created during the meet- ing, I would argue inspection and copying should be easy to accom- modate in the office of the public agency the next business day. It might be written or it might be a tape recording, but unless a clerk is using it to create the min- utes as you make the request, it should be disclosed upon request. Another reason I always sug- gest reporters go after the memo- randa is that it's created in live time so is truer to the impressions of the person taking the meeting notes. That truth gets sanitized when the clerk prepares the min- utes and sanitized even more by changes made by the board/com- mission/council before approval. There has been no sanitization of the memoranda when you ask for it. Send your questions to Steve Key, HSPA executive director and general counsel, skey@hspa. com A Open Door Law doesn't require the use of a detailed agenda Open Door Law requires memoranda to be kept during meetings Q A Q Towns required to publish annual financial reports in public notices A Q Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust $1,000 Environmental Journalism Award The Nina Mason Pulliam Environmental Journalism Award was created through a grant by the Pulliam Trust to the Hoosier State Press Association Foundation to recognize Indiana journalists for outstanding reporting on environmental issues. Beginning in 2018, the annual award will be a part of the HSPA Better Newspaper Contest. It will be presented at the Newsroom Seminar where Indiana newspaper journalists are honored each year. Hoosier State Press Association Foundation April 2018 Page 11

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