Covering public meetings

Your rights in the room

• You can attend, watch and record. Meetings of a public agency’s governing body “must be open at all times for the purpose of permitting members of the public to observe and record them” (IC 5-14-1.5-3(a)). That covers phones, cameras and audio recorders.
• No secret ballots. “A secret ballot vote may not be taken at a meeting” (IC 5-14-1.5-3(b)).
• Order still applies. A board may take reasonable steps to keep order, including removing someone who is willfully disruptive (IC 5-14-1.5-3(e)). Record from your seat, stay calm and you are on solid ground.
• Speaking is a different right. The Open Door Law requires oral public comment only at school boards and charter school governing bodies, before final action on a topic (IC 5-14-1.5-3(d)). Other boards may allow comment under their own rules. Check the agenda.

What counts as a meeting

A “meeting” is a gathering of a majority of a governing body to take official action on public business (IC 5-14-1.5-2(c)). “Official action” is broad: receiving information, deliberating, making recommendations, setting policy, making decisions or voting (IC 5-14-1.5-2(d)). Social or chance gatherings, caucuses and on-site inspections are not meetings, so long as they aren’t used to dodge the law.

Notice: when they have to tell you

• Notice of the date, time and place must be given at least 48 hours ahead, not counting Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays (IC 5-14-1.5-5(a)).
• The notice must be posted at the agency’s principal office, or at the meeting building if it has no office (IC 5-14-1.5-5(b)(1)).
• News media can ask for notices. A governing body must deliver notices to news media that send an annual written request by Dec. 31 for the next year (IC 5-14-1.5-5(b)(2)). Hoosier First editors can help you send one.
• Regular meetings need notice once a year, plus a new notice if the date, time or place changes (IC 5-14-1.5-5(c)). Emergency meetings have looser timing (IC 5-14-1.5-5(d)).

Your beat kit lists upcoming meetings and regular schedules for your county from official calendars.

Agendas and minutes

• If a board uses an agenda, it must post a copy at the entrance to the meeting room before the meeting. An action adopted only by agenda number or item, with no description, is void (IC 5-14-1.5-4(a)).
• As the meeting goes, the board must keep memoranda: date, time and place; members present and absent; the general substance of everything proposed, discussed or decided; and each member’s vote if there is a roll call (IC 5-14-1.5-4(b)).
• The memoranda must be available within a reasonable time, and minutes, if any, are open for inspection and copying (IC 5-14-1.5-4(c)). Ask for them under the public records law.

Executive sessions (closed doors)

• Boards may close a session only for reasons the law lists, such as litigation or bargaining strategy, real estate deals before a contract is signed, interviewing job candidates, individual employee performance or confidential records (IC 5-14-1.5-6.1(b)).
• The notice must name the subject “by specific reference to the enumerated instance” that allows it (IC 5-14-1.5-6.1(d)). A notice that just says “executive session” isn’t enough. Write down what it cites.
• No final votes behind closed doors. “A final action must be taken at a meeting open to the public” (IC 5-14-1.5-6.1(c)).
• The minutes must certify that nothing else was discussed (IC 5-14-1.5-6.1(d)).

Meeting-day checklist

1. Before: get the agenda and the board packet. Read the contracts, ordinances and budget pages in it. Note dollar amounts and vendors.
2. Arrive early. Photograph the posted agenda and any executive session notice.
3. Record the roll call, every motion, who made and seconded it, and the vote by member.
4. Write down exact words for anything you might quote, with the time on your recording.
5. Ask for documents referenced in the meeting: “Could I get a copy of that exhibit?” If not, request it in writing.
6. After: call or email anyone whose decision you’ll report and give them a chance to explain. Then file your story while it’s fresh.

If you think the law was broken

1. Write down what happened, when and who was there. Keep the notice, the agenda and your recording.
2. Ask the chair or the board’s attorney, politely and on the record, what section of the law they relied on.
3. Contact the Indiana Public Access Counselor ↗. It answers informal questions for free and takes formal complaints. A formal complaint must be filed within 30 days of when you learned of a secret or un-noticed meeting (IC 5-14-5-7).
4. A lawsuit to void an action generally has to be filed within 30 days (IC 5-14-1.5-7(b)). Tell your editor right away.