Ooh my honey, you got me workin’ day and night

     I never argue that members of public bodies are hard-working folks. I know that many put in long hours, for little or no pay. They put up with questions from the public that are at times uninformed or unwilling to listen to reason. Some callers can be downright argumentative.

    At the same time, I think the reality is that EVERY public body has certain office hours. Phone calls for general business information about the business of the public body are taken by specified staff persons at set hours.  While the body may have staff working 24 hours a day, and they may take phone calls all the time, I doubt the staff on call outside of general office hours willingly entertains general business requests and provides general business information to callers outside those general business hours. (For example, when is your custodian of public records in?)

    A reporter called me several weeks ago to ask me about a public body, in this case an ambulance district board. It had a meeting slated for Saturday afternoon.  The notice didn’t go up until Friday afternoon. Was that timely?

    I admit there’s not existing case law in this issue. But again, I suspect evidence would show that the “business office” for the district keeps certain business hours. That’s what I think a court would look at in deciding when the mandatory 24-hour posting clock starts running. Therefore, I think the notice better go up before the office closes on Thursday afternoon.

    Granted, reasonable minds may differ with this interpretation. Of course, the real question is what would the JUDGE decide. Is it worth it making this last-minute notice posting your public body’s policy? Lawsuits can be expensive. Perhaps this is one issue a public body would do well to err on the side of being sure notice goes out a little earlier rather than risk the threat that you’ll have to justify this in court.