« Ind. Decisions - More on "Insured's coverage passes to acquirer, court rules" | Main | Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 3 today (and 15 NFP) »

Friday, July 27, 2007

Ind. Gov't. - Fort Wayne meeting room size issue

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a story today by Benjamin Lanka:

A city resident Wednesday filed a complaint with the Indiana public access counselor because dozens of people were not allowed into Tuesday night’s Fort Wayne City Council meeting.

Jeff Pruitt wrote that almost 100 residents were barred from entering the meeting after the council’s meeting room was full. He said that action broke state law that requires government meetings be open for the public to observe and record.

“The meeting was not open for all of the public to observe and record as the doors were shut and citizens were not freely allowed to enter,” he wrote.

The council typically meets in a much larger room on the first floor of the City-County Building, but it has met in a smaller room on the second floor during the summer as its regular room undergoes renovations.

The room it used Tuesday seats about 50 people.

Clerk Sandy Kennedy said the room the council is using is the only place available for regular meetings. She said the council has no idea how many people are going to be at a particular council meeting, but the city wasn’t going to break fire code that limits the number of people in a room. * * *

Heather Neal, the Indiana Public Access counselor, said meetings are supposed to be open to everyone, but there is no specific requirement for how large a meeting room has to be for a public body. She said the fact the meeting was televised on public access television and held in a normal meeting room leads her to believe the meeting was held legally.

“It sounds to me they didn’t violate the spirit of the law, but I don’t know what a court would say,” she said.

Mitch Harper of Fort Wayne Observed had an item about this July 24th, with a followup response July 25th.

The ILB has taken a quick look at opinions of past public access counselors and has found these:

May 31, 2000 [00-FC-13] - Anne Mullin O'Connor writes:

While I must conclude that the School Board did not violate the letter of the Open Door Law with respect to its April 24, 2000 meeting, I do disagree with the School Board's assertion that their actions conformed to the spirit of the Law. According to your complaints, and undisputed by Dr. Carver in his response, the School Board was made aware of the interest in the April 24th meeting two weeks in advance, but refused to move the meeting location. Fire officials were in attendance, obviously at the request of the School Board or their staff, to ensure that the meeting room capacity was not exceeded. Further, even when informed of the numbers of people standing outside wanting to attend, observe and record their meeting, they still refused to move to a larger room-either a gymnasium or auditorium in the nearby school buildings.

The conduct of the School Board with respect to its April 24, 2000 meeting did not, in my opinion, constitute compliance with the spirit of the Open Door Law.

Sept. 5, 2001 [01-FC-45] - Anne Mullin O'Connor writes:
The Commission does not set specific start times due to fact that the amount of time necessary for each application is unknown prior to the hearing time. As far as the meeting room is concerned, it has always been adequate to hold the persons interested in particular meetings and the reason many people are standing outside is that they have no interest in the Application being heard. * * *

As to your additional complaints, it does not appear that they constitute violations of the ODL. There are no specific requirements under the ODL for meeting room size or to require that microphones or other amplification methods be used to ensure that all persons can hear the discussion of the governing body. Certainly, if the audience is having trouble hearing the discussion of the Commission, that fact should be brought to the Commission’s attention but it is not a violation of the letter of the ODL. Also, there are no requirements under the ODL that require a governing body to set specific times for hearings to take place within a meeting agenda to accommodate those who may want to attend a specific hearing. The fact that a person may have to wait to be heard on a specific application before the Commission is not a violation of the ODL.

Jan. 9, 2004 [03-FC-138] - Michael A. Hurst writes:
The only specific requirement set forth for the meeting location and room is that the meeting room must be accessible for persons with disabilities. IC 5-14-3-8. There is no provision in the Open Door Law that requires a governing body to meet in a venue with a specific meeting room size or capacity. That said, if evidence indicates that the meeting room was so inadequate as to constitute an infringement on the public’s right to observe and record the meeting, the governing body may be found to have violated the Open Door Law. See IC 5-14-1.5-3(a); Advisory Opinion 00-FC-13, Alleged Violation of the Open Door Law by the Board of the Franklin Township Community School Corporation.

Based on the facts presented here, I decline to find that the Board violated the Open Door Law. The Open Door Law does not specifically require that a governing body meet in a room of any particular size, or that it meet in a room that can seat or otherwise accommodate every person that desires to attend that meeting. Indeed, such a requirement would be impractical for several reasons. A governing body cannot precisely predict the numbers of persons that will attend its meetings, and even where it can reasonably predict the attendance based on the issues to be presented, a room of adequate size may not be available to the governing body. This would be particularly problematic for those governing bodies that are required by other law to meet within a specific geographic location or in a particular building. Then too, the Open Door law would not be satisfied but rather would be undermined by a rule or an interpretation that would require a governing body to cancel a meeting attended by, for example, 101 persons simply because the meeting room could only accommodate 100 of those persons.

While the Open Door Law does not require a specific room meeting size, it nonetheless provides guidance to governing bodies to suggest that the meeting location be adequate to accommodate the public’s right to attend the meeting. See IC 5-14-1.5-3(a). A violation may be found if there is evidence to suggest that the governing body infringed on that right by meeting in a room or under circumstances that defeated the public’s right to observe and record the meeting. No such evidence is presented here. Indeed, the Board met in the room regularly utilized for Board meetings. That room is large and holds more than 100 people. More significantly, that room is apparently large enough to hold every person who wishes to attend in the overwhelming majority of meetings.2 Moreover, the Board’s attitude toward overflow crowds in general and specific to the meeting at issue suggests that the Board met the letter and spirit of the Open Door Law. The Board equipped the hallway with an audio system that permitted people attending the meeting in that location to hear what was occurring in the meeting room. And, with regard to this meeting, the Board momentarily suspended its business to allow for one contingent of the public to exit once their business was completed, and to allow for anyone in the lobby to at that time enter the vacated seats in the meeting room. There is no allegation or evidence to suggest that you were unable to observe and record the meeting from your vantage point in the lobby, or that you were precluded from entering the meeting room as the seats were vacated during the meeting. Neither is there any allegation or evidence that the Board sought to meet in a room too small to handle public attendance, or that it refused to try to accommodate any member of the public that desired to attend its meeting.

March 12, 2007 [Informal] - Karen Davis writes:
This Office has issued several advisory opinions concerning allegations that the meeting room for school board meetings is inadequate to accommodate the public. See Opinion of the Public Access Counselor 00-FC-13; Opinion of the Public Access Counselor 03-FC-138.

The Open Door Law sets specific requirements for meetings to be conducted by governing bodies of public agencies in Indiana. Notices to the public and media must be posted and delivered as prescribed under Indiana Code section 5-14-1.5-5. If an agenda is used, it must be posted outside the meeting room immediately before the meeting begins under Indiana Code section 5-14-1.5-4. The meeting room must be accessible for persons with disabilities under Indiana Code section 5-14-3-8. There is no provision of the Open Door Law that requires a specific meeting room size or capacity. However, if evidence indicates that the meeting room was so inadequate as to constitute an infringement of the public’s right to observe and record the meeting, the governing body may be found to have violated the Open Door Law. * * *

If the Board did not hold its meeting in a room adequate to accommodate a substantial number of persons as has been the Board’s recent experience, this could constitute a violation of the Open Door Law’s requirement that the public be permitted to observe and record the meeting. On February 12 there were a substantial number of persons who had to observe the meeting from another room. It is not clear from the facts whether the video equipment allowed for all to observe, and whether the audio was clear enough for those present to hear the Board and to record the meeting. In addition, I note that providing video or audio of the meeting is but a substitute for actual attendance in the same room as the Board. Providing audio or video has been approved in circumstances where the Board had posted a notice for a particular room but had to accommodate a larger crowd than it could have anticipated.

Here, the Board was aware that the interest in the meetings ran high, and decided to revert to the Board room with full knowledge that the attendance would likely greatly exceed the size of the Board room. Even if the Board did not violate the letter of the Open Door Law, I find that the Board’s action to move the meeting to its regular Board room did not conform to the spirit of the Open Door Law.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 27, 2007 10:57 AM
Posted to Indiana Government