Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;Gordon Slone,Assistant Attorney General
Open Meetings Decision
The issue presented in this appeal is whether the Rowan County Board of Elections ("Board") complied with the Open Meetings Act's requirements for making its schedule of regular meetings available to the public. For the reasons that follow, we find that the Board did not violate the Open Meetings Act.
On June 9, 2017, David Bolt, emailed a complaint to the Rowan County Attorney regarding the Rowan County Board of Elections. Mr. Bolt complained that the Board should do more than "post notices on the office door" and should "post the meeting dates, times and location on the Clerk's web site and with the Morehead news." The Rowan County Clerk 1 responded to the complaint by letter dated that same day, June 9, 2017, and explained how the regular schedule of meetings was determined when she came into office in 2015:
. . . on January 21, 2015, the Rowan County Board of Elections met to set a date for a school of elections for the Special Election to be held on March 3, 2015 and to establish regular meeting dates and times. This meeting was given public notice by posting on the Courthouse Front doors, the entry door to the Clerk's office, along with the Vault door of the County Clerk's office, the Friday prior to the meeting.
Please find enclosed and made a part of this response a copy of Board of Election minutes reflecting this establishment of a schedule of Regular Called Meetings, as set out by the Kentucky Open Meetings Act, listing the specified date, the 2nd Tuesday of the month, specified place, to be held in the Vault of the Rowan County Clerk's office, specified time, at 9:00 am. This record is open to the public and may be seen at any time, as it is available to all who would inquire of such information, as the book is openly labeled in the vault of the Rowan County Clerk's office, with all the other public records on file.
Mr. Bolt filed his complaint with this office, stating that the Board failed to make its schedule of regular meetings available to the public, as required by KRS 61.820(2), because that schedule is "buried in a book with hundreds of pages and stored with hundreds of other books in the Rowan County Clerk's office." He described various other ways that the Board could have complied with the statutory requirement for making the schedule of regular meetings available to the public.
The Rowan County Clerk responded to Mr. Bolt's appeal by letter dated July 12, 2017, and explained, in relevant part, that the Board's minutes "are readily available and very easily accessible," and "held in an openly visible area of our vault. " She further explained that the "Rowan County Clerk website does have the information posted regarding the Rowan County Board of Elections members and the regular schedule of meetings."
Analysis
Mr. Bolt's complaint appears to be that the schedule of regular meetings of the Board was not "made available to the public." Mr. Bolt recommended that the County Clerk "should have posted the schedule of regular meetings on the doors of her office, the bulletin board outside her office, or somewhere in the Courthouse . . . and could have posted the information on the Rowan County Clerk's website under the 'elections' tab." He also suggested that the schedule could have been placed in the local newspaper.
Our analysis of this issue begins with the statute, KRS 61.820(2), which states:
All public agencies shall provide for a schedule of regular meetings by ordinance, order, resolution, bylaws, or by whatever other means may be required for the conduct of business of that public agency. The schedule of regular meetings shall be made available to the public.
We are not at liberty to add or subtract from the legislative enactment or discover meanings not reasonably ascertainable from the language used. Beckham v. Board of Educ., 873 S.W.2d 575, 577 (Ky. 1994). Likewise, in regards to statutory construction, KRS 446.080(4) requires that "All words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language, but technical words and phrases, and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law, shall be construed according to such meaning." In KRS 61.820(2), the term, "made available to the public," does not have a technical or peculiar meaning and so we must construe it according to common and approved usage. Thus we cannot interpret the term, "made available to the public," to require the specific usage recommended in the complaint. While we agree that such methods (posting in newspaper, on a bulletin board, or on the County Clerk's door) could be acceptable means of making the Board's regular schedule of meetings available to the public, we do not find that those are the only acceptable ways of complying with the Open Meetings Act.
We note that the Rowan County Clerk responded on the same day, with notice of the Board's regular schedule of meetings, as the complaint was received. Moreover, the County Clerk asserted that she would have provided that schedule had she been contacted by telephone. The County Clerk also states that the minutes where the Board adopted the schedule are in an openly visible area of the County Clerk's vault. Further, as stated by the County Clerk, and which we have confirmed, the Board's regular schedule of meetings is indeed posted on the County Clerk's website. 2 The County Clerk's answer to the complaint reflects that the schedule of regular meetings is available to the public by telephone, by visiting the County Clerk's office, by contacting the County Clerk via the County Attorney, and by visiting the County Clerk's website. Under these facts we cannot find that the Board violated KRS 61.820(2).
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.846(4)(a). The Attorney General must be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceedings.
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