The Porter County Board of Commissioners Tuesday told the Indiana public access counselor in a letter that it was not violating the state’s open door law by holding “administrative meetings.” Indiana’s Public Access Counselor Luke Britt said he will take a few weeks to make a decision on the matter.
The board was asked by the office to answer a questionnaire after Porter County Council President Jeremy Rivas, D-2nd, filed a complaint with his office March 1. Rivas complained meetings have addressed such non-routine matters as renovations proposed for the Memorial Opera House, a public safety tax, and reestablishing the bond issue for the jail once it expires later this year while also failing to be properly advertised.
In a seven-page reply that also included seven pages of supporting documents, Porter County Attorney Scott McClure responded to the claims. “It is the Board’s position that … the administrative nature of these meetings exempts them from the notice requirements which apply to regular meetings,” McClure wrote in the letter which was required by March 21.
Despite that contention, the notice requirement was still met, the letter goes on. It listed six meetings that have been held between Jan. 3 and Feb. 16 of this year. An affidavit of Melanie Massey, executive administrative assistant to the county commissioners, attested to the procedure she follows posting meeting notices in the lobby of the Porter County Administration Center on a two-sided placard at least 48 hours in advance of the meetings that are held on site.
According to McClure’s letter, the Jan. 3 meeting had Memorial Opera House renovations on the agenda, and all three commissioners, President Jim Biggs, R-North; Vice President Barb Regnitz, R-Center; and Member Laura Blaney, D-South, were present. All three were also present Jan. 10 when the highway department was on the agenda.
By the Jan. 19 meeting the agenda had gotten considerably larger, with video equipment, facilities, board appointment requirements/process, CCMG funding, attendance at commissioners’ meetings, parking garage signs, commissioner’s agenda, health/fitness, employees’ new roles/titles, website, and NextEra all listed. It was the last of the administrative meetings that saw all three board members in attendance.
“The agenda of the last one I was at was a little longer and more complex and I felt uncomfortable at that point,” Blaney said. “I have faith in Scott, so it’s probably fine.”
However, with issues such as national opioid settlement money and a public safety tax coming up at these meetings Blaney said the format doesn’t feel appropriate even if it meets the letter of the law. “They’re starting to address some issues that I think should be a little more public than a piece of paper in the rotunda,” she added.
Regnitz was the only board member present for the Jan. 25 meeting that addressed building issues at the Family & Youth Services Bureau, space issues faced by the coroner, IT/print shop standardization of business card layout, and department head meeting and township trustee meeting.
The board has continued to hold these administrative meetings, and, in fact, says they got the idea from the public access counselor himself. “I found out about admin meetings in Luke Britt’s session about the Open Door Law,” Regnitz said of a commissioners’ conference she attended last year.
The board has held at least four meetings other than those mentioned in McClure’s letter, plus a brown bag lunch intended to give department heads a chance to speak with board members. Regnitz said it has been advertised as an administrative meeting in order to meet advertising requirements and allow for more than one board member to attend if they wish.
Biggs says the meetings are a tool for better managing the county’s 600-plus employees and 18 buildings. “You cannot possibly manage this going to two meetings a month,” he said. “Jeremy has every right to file his complaint but he doesn’t know what the job entails. I have done the county council job and you go to one meeting a month.”
He added that not once has a contract been signed or a vendor given any work at one of these meetings. “We have a lot to do. We want to get a lot done. I don’t think Barb or I need to apologize for wanting to do our job,” Biggs added.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
