Request By:
Mr. Dennis A. Gordon, Director
Hardin County Planning Commission
Court House/Public Square
Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Cicely D. Jaracz, Assistant Attorney General
This office is in receipt of your request for an opinion concerning the Open Meetings Law. Specifically, you state that the Hardin County Planning Commission (HCPC) has drafted an ordinance of land use regulations which is before the Hardin County Fiscal Court. Your opinion request concerns whether the meeting proposed in the ordinance is subject to the Open Meetings Law.
The ordinance proposes an informal meeting between land developers and owners of adjacent property regarding site approval for land development projects. The meetings are to be held before project approval is granted and money is expended. The developer is required to attend the meeting and all affected property owners (within 1200 feet) will be notified by mail and encouraged to attend. HCPC staff will be present to facilitate exchanges but not to make decisions. It is up to the assembled land developers and property owners to make any decisions or compromises. No members of HCPC or the Fiscal Court are required or expected to attend.
As public agencies, the Hardin County Planning Commission and Hardin County Fiscal Court are subject to the Open Meetings Law. KRS 61.805(2). However, it is the opinion of this office that the meeting in the proposed ordinance is not subject to the Open Meetings Law as long as a quorum of either public agency is not present. KRS 61.810 states:
All meetings of a quorum of the members of any public agency at which any public business is discussed or at which any action is taken by such agency, are declared to be public meetings, open to the public at all times. . .
It appears that the proposed informal meeting is not designed as a meeting of a public agency, but instead is a meeting between land developers and land owners. The public agency only arranges the meeting, but no collective decision or commitment can be made by the public agency as long as a quorum is not present.
It is therefore the opinion of the Attorney General that the proposed informal meeting, as outlined above, is not subject to the Open Meetings Law provided that a quorum of either public agency is not present.