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Monday, March 27, 2006
Law - Another records case heads to Ohio's top court; what about Indiana?
Following up on the ILB March 21st entry titled "Two Ohio Supreme Court decisions regarding public records" is a report that another records case is heading to the Ohio Supreme Court. Per the Canton Ohio Repository (subscription required), this story:
COLUMBUS - The Ohio Supreme Court is being asked to decide how much public funding and public function is significant enough to make a private agency subject to the state’s public-records law.What about Indiana? The ILB has not checked the Ohio public records law to see whether it parallels the Indiana law. A similar question arose with the Gary Urban Enterprise Board last year. A 6/12/05 Munster (NW Indiana) Times story by Brendan O'Shaughnessy began:On Wednesday, the court will hear arguments in a case pitting The Repository, one of three Copley Ohio Newspapers, against Nova Behavioral Health.
Before it collapsed last summer amidst allegations of cover-ups and financial mismanagement, Nova was Stark County’s largest mental-health care provider.
The newspaper sued in May 2005 after Nova refused to release the personnel record of Dennis Bliss, Nova’s highest billing counselor. It also refused requests for financial documents. * * *
“Nova is a public office (by law) and the personnel file is a record,” said Richard D. Panza, the Avon-based attorney for the newspaper. “(Nova) was organized for the purpose of serving the public. It performed what we perceive as a historical government function ... the treatment of the mentally ill, particularly those who are un- or under-insured.
“The fact that Nova is not in existence ... shows that when (the board) denied them their (public) money, they had to fold their tent.”
John B. Lindamood, a North Canton attorney who will represent Nova, said the former private, nonprofit agency got public money only “for contract services provided. We had no public connection. It was a totally independent board. We maintained our own facilities. We owned our own building.” * * *
“Their publisher has already determined it’s not about the personnel record,” Lindamood said. “They want the court to make new law in Ohio. I think their position is that they are entitled to anything, anywhere, anytime.”
But Panza said the case is about making clear a “very, very ambiguous issue” regarding the amount of public funding needed to make a private agency subject to the records law. “Here we have 87 percent of public funding,” Panza said.
He said a 1998 decision by the state high court “clearly held a private not-for-profit can perform public functions, which require them to produce certain public records.”
INDIANAPOLIS | The new Gary Urban Enterprise Association board and its lawyer have slipped through a crack in open-door laws and are refusing to provide state-requested reports on the embattled nonprofit agency.Here is an advisory opinion from the Indiana Public Access Counselor dated May 4, 2005 on the issue of when is an entity subject to the public records law.The new GUEA board has also not followed the requirements for reapproval laid out by the former oversight agency, the Indiana State Enterprise Zone Board, and has kept the nonprofit's actions and documents shrouded in secrecy.
Despite a 90-day time limit to complete and submit a financial audit, GUEA has not sent a final copy to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the new oversight agency. The report was due March 10.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 27, 2006 07:26 AM
Posted to General Law Related