Published: May 09, 2008 12:03 am            

Housing board may have had illegal meeting

Press association attorney: April meeting ‘improper’

TERRE HAUTE — The Terre Haute Housing Authority board of directors may have violated Indiana’s public access laws when it voted to approve a new executive director for the low-income housing agency late last month.

The seven-member board voted to offer the job of executive director to Jeff Stewart, an officer with Terre Haute Savings Bank, the evening of April 28, said board attorney David Sullivan.

The vote came during an open session meeting of the board, Sullivan said; however, that open session followed an earlier open session meeting that was adjourned for an executive – or closed – session meeting, he said.

Members of the Housing Authority staff, the media and others left the meeting room when the board’s executive session began. Sullivan said he did not know whether anyone other than he and the board members were present when the board later met in open session and voted to hire Stewart.

“They went back into the public, open session” after the executive session, Sullivan said, adding that the later meeting was an extension of the earlier public meeting, not a separate public meeting.

“It sounds like that would be an improper meeting,” said Steve Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association. “A governing body may not conduct an executive session during a meeting,” he said quoting Indiana law. “That’s clearly a violation.”

If the later meeting was considered a separate public meeting, then all three meetings would need to have been advertised in advance, Key said.

Sullivan, who could not be reached Thursday evening to comment on Key’s statements, said earlier Thursday that he did not believe the board violated Indiana’s public access laws when it voted to hire Stewart.

Stewart could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Acting board president Tom Hunt also could not be reached for comment Thursday. Board member Marshall Rector, reached at his home, referred questions to Sullivan, but said he was not aware that any public access laws had been violated.

“None of the board members had any knowledge at all that we were in violation,” Rector said. “We thought that it was properly posted … It was not our knowledge that we violated anything.”

Members of the Housing Authority board of directors are appointed by the mayor. They are paid $40 per meeting, Sullivan said.

Meanwhile, Sullivan said the Housing Authority Board sent a response to Terre Haute City Councilman Rich Dunkin, D-1st, who made a public records request from the board at the April 28 meeting.

“We’ll produce the requested records to the extent they … are disclosable,” Sullivan said of Dunkin’s request. At the April 28 meeting, Dunkin requested records of all special call executive session meetings from Jan. 1 to present. He also requested all advertisements of executive sessions and copies of contracts between the Housing Authority and two different consultants.

Last week Dunkin filed a complaint with the Indiana Office of the Public Access Counselor against the Housing Authority Board alleging the board failed to advertise an executive session meeting and hired a new executive director in an “illegal” closed door meeting. Several employees of the Housing Authority later joined Dunkin’s complaint.

Indiana’s public access laws require governing bodies to give 48-hour advance notice of all open and closed meetings, according to the Office of the Public Access Counselor.

Any action taken in a meeting in violation of Indiana’s public access laws can be voided by a judge, Key said. But that would first require the filing of a formal complaint with the Indiana Office of the Public Access Counselor, he said.

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

        

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