Town Marshal Jim Eads questioned the Mentone Town Council Tuesday evening on whether a decision in his favor may have violated Indiana’s Open Door Law.
Even though Councilwoman Shelly Krueger stated at the August Mentone Town Council meeting that she didn’t want to hire Indiana Law Enforcement Academy staff attorney Charles N. Braun II to write police policy for the town, Council President Tim Croy hired him anyway sometime after the Aug. 3 meeting.
Since the August meeting, Croy directed Clerk-Treasurer Barb Ross to pay Braun $1,000 out of legal fees for Braun to review the police policies Krueger has been working on for the past five months.
At the August meeting, Eads stated he had talked to Braun who could review the town’s policies for a fee and Eads said he didn’t want Krueger to write policies for his department. The discussion between Eads and Krueger at last month’s meeting was heated.
The council didn’t discuss Braun or the police policies Tuesday night until toward the end of the meeting when Eads asked the council to bring him up to speed on their conversation about hiring Braun.
“If you read the minutes, we left it at the last meeting that we were all set to approve Shelly’s version of things, and then we hired Braun, paying him $1,000,” Eads said.
Krueger said Braun hasn’t gotten to Mentone’s police policies yet, but was still working on it. Eads said he understood that, but wanted to hear the council’s conversation on “how we went from this to hiring Braun.”
Krueger said hiring Braun was what Eads wanted, and Eads agreed, but reminded the council of the Open Door Policy of Indiana.
“That’s the issue,” he said. “If you don’t see that … you guys make a decision outside of the meeting. You guys see that? This is the type of stuff that needs to be discussed in an open meeting, not in between August and September. That’s the issue that I have. Then you spend $1,000. To spend money, doesn’t two of you have to approve that? Isn’t that how that works in spending money?”
The Open Door Law was originally enacted in 1977 to permit public access to meetings held by public agencies, according to the state’s website. Under the Indiana Open Door Law, a “meeting” is a gathering of a majority of the members of a governing body of a public agency for the purpose of taking official action upon agency business. “Official” action means to receive information, deliberate, make recommendations, establish policy, make decisions or take final action. Action taken by a public agency, like a town council, must be voted on in a public meeting under the law. A handbook on the law is available at http://www.in.gov/pac/files/pac_handbook.pdf
Krueger asked Croy if he had an answer to Eads’ question about Open Door Policy and spending $1,000 to hire Braun.
“I can see his point,” Croy said.
Jill Gross, councilwoman, said Croy initiated the call to Braun.
“I called, questioning him about what he would charge. He said $1,000 to review it. I sent a copy to him,” Croy said.
Gross said the decision was already made by the time she and Krueger heard about it. “So what do we have to do now?” Krueger asked.
“Don’t repeat it,” Ross advised.
“It wasn’t my choice to do that,” Krueger told Eads. “I would have preferred to just go ahead and us review (my policies) and adopt it.”
Eads asked if the town was going to continue on with Braun then.
“My personal opinion, I expected him to be done already when I found out when it was decided,” Krueger said. “And I don’t know whether he’s going to deliver in a timely fashion, and whether or not he’s going to turn around and say, ‘Oh, it’s going to cost you more.’ I don’t know.”
Eads said the letter from Braun said it would cost $1,000. Krueger said her preference was to just get it done, and her version of the police policies were “very well written” with some minor typing errors. Krueger said she was going to stay in contact with Braun on it.
Ross said according to a letter from Braun dated Aug. 19, he’s requesting quite a bit of information from the town that needs to get to him.
Croy was asked whose decision it was to hire Braun and if he contacted Gross or Krueger in making that decision, Croy replied, “I done that all on my own. After Jim said he wanted (Braun), I got a number from Jim, contacted Mr. Braun. He said he would review it for $1,000. I told him I wanted to proceed to make sure our thing was done and done right with our policy written up. He would review that for us and said it would cost us $1,000 as an attorney fee for him to do that. And then he sent a letter to Barb – well, he faxed that information here along with the bill – and I had Barb send him $1,000 for him to review it and make sure it was right.”
Ross clarified that the letter was to Croy, and that the decision to spend the $1,000 was not discussed in a meeting.
Eads asked the council again if they were going to continue on with Braun.
“I, myself, am saying that I want to continue on with Braun to make sure it’s done and done right,” Croy said.
Eads said he was on board with that and just wanted some clarification.
Eads said Braun would have an on-site meeting with them, so the policies wouldn’t be done “in three days.” Krueger said as long as it gets done, she was OK with that.
The discussion ended with Gross and Krueger confirming they were moving forward with Braun.
No official vote was ever taken during Tuesday’s public meeting on hiring Braun or paying him the $1,000.
(Story By The Times Union)
