The Grant County Area Plan Commission met both in executive session and a special session Monday night to discuss and implement the discipline of APC Executive Director Ryan Mallott based on his work performance. According to Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt, the special session was not noticed properly.
Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-5 says, “Public notice of the date, time, and place of any meetings, executive sessions, or of any rescheduled or reconvened meeting, shall be given at least forty-eight (48) hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays) before the meeting. This requirement does not apply to reconvened meetings (not including executive sessions) where announcement of the date, time, and place of the reconvened meeting is made at the original meeting and recorded in the memoranda and minutes thereof, and there is no change in the agenda.”
Public notice is given in two ways, it says. First, “The governing body of a public agency shall give public notice by posting a copy of the notice at the principal office of the public agency holding the meeting or, if no such office exists, at the building where the meeting is to be held.”
Second, “The governing body of a public agency shall give public notice by delivering notice to all news media which deliver an annual written request for the notices not later than December 31 for the next succeeding calendar year to the governing body of the public agency.”
On the door of the county complex, there were two notices published. The first was for an executive session to be held at 7 p.m. on March 18. The purpose of the executive session, according to the notice, was “Executive Director Performance Review” and “Other personnel matters.”
The second notice was for an “Open Meeting” on Monday 18, “Immediately following the Executive Session.”
“There has to be a finite start time,” Britt said. “It can’t just be at the end of another event. It has to say ‘We’re starting at 7, we’re starting at 7:30, we’re starting at 8.’ That would be sufficient notice. That’s so that the public knows when to show up, and they’re not sitting around waiting until you know, they’re (the APC) done with their previous discussion. So that would be problematic.”
To clarify Britt’s meaning, the Chronicle-Tribune asked, “Are you saying that because their public notice ahead of time just said, ‘...following this meeting,’ are you saying that the [special] session wasn’t noticed properly?”
“Exactly,” Britt said.
The start time of the session was especially relevant Monday because people began arriving by 7 p.m. to wait for the public meeting because it was unknown if “Immediately following the executive session” would end up being 7:10 or 7:30 or 8. The public was let into the room for the meeting at 8:26 p.m.
The second problem with the manner in which the meeting was noticed is that the APC did not notify the news media as directed by state statute. On Dec. 27, 2023, the Chronicle-Tribune submitted a written request to the APC to be notified of the date, time and place of any of its meetings, executive sessions and rescheduled or reconvened meetings. The Chronicle-Tribune received a list of the regularly scheduled meetings for the APC, but that did not include Monday’s meeting.
The Chronicle-Tribune asked Britt what ramifications the improper noticing of a meeting could have and if it would change anything.
“Possibly. I don’t know how a judge would look at it,” Britt said, “if they would consider that to be prejudicial to the public to the extent that they would force the governing body to walk back a vote? Maybe. But it’s more of a fact-based determination.”
The APC voted to suspend Mallott without pay for five days, a “six-month zero tolerance policy to be determined by the APC executive committee as to what that will look like” and annual performance reviews, during the open portion of the meeting.
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