Lorie Love
In a possible violation of state sunshine laws, Madison Fiscal Court apparently met after Tuesday’s regular scheduled meeting adjourned to decide to place an ad in the Richmond Register disputing a fact previously reported about the leasing of a new family court building to a company owned by state Sen. Ed Worley of Richmond.
The Kentucky Open Meetings Act states that any meeting of a public agency which has a quorum of members present, where public business is discussed or action is taken, must be open to the public at all times.
A meeting is defined in the Kentucky Revised Statutes as “gatherings of every kind, including video teleconferences, regardless of where the meeting is held, and whether regular or special and informational or casual gatherings held in anticipation of or in conjunction with a regular or special meeting.”
Magistrate Roger Barger said Madison Judge/Executive Kent Clark met with the magistrates after the meeting to discuss running the ad.
He said Clark talked about running the ad while all magistrates were present, but no decision was made.
“He said we (the magistrates) would get to look at it first,” Barger said, adding that he did not see the ad before it was sent to the newspaper.
When asked if all magistrates were present, he said they were.
Magistrate Bill Tudor said running the ad was mentioned “... in a general fashion,” but no decision was made.
“I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Tudor said.
When asked, Magistrate Larry Combs said after the meeting, he was in Clark’s office when the judge asked him about whether to run the ad.
When asked if Magistrate Harold Botner was in the room while this discussion was taking place, Combs said he could not remember, even though the meeting was on Tuesday and he was asked on Wednesday.
If Clark meets with more than one magistrate in his office, at least three fiscal court members then are present, which makes a quorum behind closed doors. A quorum is the number of members of a body that when duly assembled is legally competent to transact business.
Tudor said magistrates meeting with Clark privately after open meetings is something that happens “... occasionally.”
Messages left on Botner’s answering machine were not returned after several attempts to reach him.
The ad in question, received Wednesday afternoon by the newspaper, is directed to Register staff, asking them to look at two legal advertisements placed in the classified section for proposals for a new family court facility. The legal ads in question ran in the Register in February.
“The 4 or 5 articles the Richmond Register has published on the front page states that Judge Clark requested the facility to be within 2 blocks of the courthouse,” the ad reads. “Both ads that ran clearly state that the new family court facility should be within 3 blocks of the Madison County Courthouse. Three (3) blocks takes in 90% of downtown.”
At the bottom of the ad, it reads, “Paid for by the Madison County Fiscal Court.”
Clark adamantly denies he met with magistrates after the meeting. He was tired of seeing negative stories in the paper that made him appear he was “in cahoots with someone,” he said.
The judge is referring to an article in Wednesday’s paper that quotes him as saying the Administrative Office of the Courts wanted the family court facility to be within two blocks of the Madison County Courthouse.
The newspaper — which never quoted the actual legal ad, just Clark — went on to reveal that the AOC said it did not set the parameters for the lease.
The judge originally had made the statement in a July interview about Worley’s involvement with the family court project, and the quote appeared in a July 12 story on the Register’s front page.
Clark never has contacted the paper asking for a correction or clarification on any of his quotes about the project.
Clark told Register staff on Wednesday that he was “just trying to get your attention.”
He said he never intended for the ad to run in the newspaper, even though it was sent to the paper for a price quote.
"It was never confirmed," he said.
The informal gathering of magistrates with the judge to discuss and make a decision is a clear cut violation of open meetings law, said Jeremy Rogers, an attorney for the Kentucky Press Association.
He said the casual meeting violated state law because a quorum of the fiscal court met to discuss public business and apparently made a decision to take action, all without conducting a public meeting or giving public notice of the meeting.
By apparently agreeing to spend public funds to purchase the ad, the court took action, which also violates the sunshine law.
The ad measured four columns wide and 3 3/4 inches tall and would have cost $246.24 to run in the paper.
After being confronted about the advertisement, Clark said he no longer wanted to run it.
According to the Kentucky Revised Statutes, “action taken” means a collective decision, a commitment or promise to make a positive or negative decision, or an actual vote by a majority of the members of the governmental body.
The Register on Wednesday afternoon filed an official complaint with Clark about the violation.
Clark said the fiscal court did not violate sunshine laws because the magistrates were scattered around the offices during the discussion.
Staff writer Ronica Shannon contributed to this story.
Lorie Love can be reached at llove@richmondregister.com or 624-6690.
