ICOIL: Clarification about Official Requests and Concerns

On July 11, when the ICOIL meeting was cancelled, I sent a letter to the
council informing them of my frustrations at having recieved less then 24
hours notice of a meeting cancellation and requesting that they provide
among other things time to clarify how current chair seemed to have the
authority to cancel a meeting without notice, when the previous chair did
not and was slandered. See
http://www.dimenet.com/hotnews/archive.php?mode=A&id=6603;&sort=D

In Response to that e-mail the current vice chair sent me an e-mail
expressing concern and requesting further clarification. (See e-mail
below).  I appreciated his feedback and have tried my best to address his
concerns, while clarifying the nature of my request.  I know that other
people may have similair concerns.  I hope my response is helpful, and
that ultimately any confusion can be cleared up through open and honest
dialog. 

_______________________________________


Please base your allegations on fact instead of fantasy.  I have
researched the open door law and can not find any reference to a
requirement for 48 hour notice of cancellation of a meeting. 
 
Can you provide the section number and paragraph covering this area? 

_______________________________________

Dear Richard,
 
Thank you for highlighting the complexity of the situation, and
reinforcing the need that my concerns be added to the agenda next month,
and addressed as part of an open dialog with the public. 
 
I appreciate your feedback, but before I address your concerns, I just
have to say that I am saddened that you would believe that I would base
anything with regards to this council on anything other then fact.  I have
always made a conscious effort to be objective.  This is why I site
sources I am referring to, and the reason that I did not tape over the
audio recordings of meetings like you and Al Tolbert advised. 
 
It is also the reason why I repeatedly asked that if the council wished to
make changes inconsistant with the still existing audio and video tapes,
that it needed to be done by a vote of the council, and not an arbitrary
decision I make.  I did not want the personal liability of knowingly
falsifying documents. 
 
The fact is, I did not base my statements regarding meeting notification
on fantasy, but on the open door law, and the precident that has been set
that at least 48 hours notice be provided to members of the public with
regards to rescheduling of meetings. (For further clarification on where I
am coming from, see open door law and my explaination below): 
 
IC 5-14-1.5-5
Public notice of meetings

     Sec. 5. (a) Public notice of the date, time, and place of any
meetings, executive sessions, or of any rescheduled or reconvened meeting,
shall be given at least forty-eight (48) hours (excluding Saturdays,
Sundays, and legal holidays) before the meeting. This requirement does not
apply to reconvened meetings (not including executive sessions) where
announcement of the date, time, and place of the reconvened meeting is
made at the original meeting and recorded in the memoranda and minutes
thereof, and there is no change in the agenda. 
 
Above is what the open door says with regards to notice of public
meetings. It definately requires 48 hours business days notice of public
meetings.  The way I was reading it required 48 hours to post, then why
would it not also require when possible 48 hours to cancel?  Doing so
certainly is not inconsistant with the law. 
 
Obviously there are times when providing 48 hours notice is not feasible. 
An example of this would be November 2006 when the majority of the council
seemed to boycott the meeting when and there was no quorum.  But that
situation is different from this one where the cancellation is not so much
a cancellation as it is a change in the schedule. 
  
I know the law does not specifically use the words cancellation, but the
fact of the matter is that one of the reasons repeatedly given for Jodi to
not be able to cancel the meeting in Sept. was that the public had already
been notified of the meeting, and that the meeting could not be cancelled
because the meeting had already been posted to the public. 
 
In this case the same thing has occured, the meeting was not cancelled
because Dee Ann arrived at the meeting to discover that there was not
going to be a meeting, the meeting was cancelled because Dee Ann believed
she would arrive at the meeting and there would be no quorum.  There was a
schedule in effect that the council specifically voted on in December.
this schedule was changed, not because of what did happen, but because of
what might happen. 
 
In addition, based on the precident in Sept, that schedule could not be
arbitrarily modified by the chair without: 
 
A) there first being a vote by the council at large (which could not
happen, because there was no public meeting or committee meeting at which
the council could have made such a vote)
 
B) Without proper notice of the change of the established schedule to the
public... and according to the open door 48 hours notice is required when
a meeting schedule is changed. 
 
But even if that precident had not been set, it's the right thing to do
when working with people with disabilities, because people with
disabilities have transportation issues and some paratransit services will
charge you if you do not cancel within a certain time.  So in that regard
providing 48 hour notice is a reasonable accommodation, and is most
certainly a good practice working specifically with the people with
disabilities, and people that have to travel considerably long distances
to get to a meeting. 
 
(* Note: I know that you have held the position that the open door law
does not require reasonable accommodation.  You have used the open door
law, at least twice that I am aware of to deny reasonable accommodation
under the ADA, when doing so would support of your own agenda. 
 
The first time I am aware you did this, was when you used the open door
law to deny Jodi James the reasonable accommodation to be allowed to
participate in a meeting by phone when her power wheelchair was broken
(see July 2006 meeting http://www.onecandream.com/ICOIL/documents)
 
The second time was when you held that Emas Bennett should not have been
given the reasonable accomodation of being able to participate at an
Executive Committee meeting by phone when he was not able to attend in
person because of his disability.  When Jodi James honored his request and
allowed him to participate by phone because of his disability, you held
the position that the entire executive committee meeting needed to be
nullified because even though the majority of the Executive Committee was
physically present, allowing someone to participate by phone was a
violation of open door law. 
 
Technically you may have been right, about the open door law does not take
into consideration the ADA, but then technically when there is a conflict
between laws the federal law is supposed to supercede state law.  So in
those instances like in this one we have been in disagreement as to the
practical implication of the law.  But both of us have based our position
on fact. *)
 
I am concerned because as a council member, you have again showed more
interest in determining what you are minimally required to do under the
law, and not what you should be doing to improve the situation for people
with disabilities in Indiana. 
 
I am frustrated, because while doing that, appears you have missed the
main points of my official requests, namely that the council at least try
to inform the public with reasonably adequate time so as not to
arbitrarily inconvenience them, and addressing how it is that a chair can
cancel a meeting on a belief that there may not be a quorum, when the
precident set in Sept. 2006, that an ICOIL chair does not have the
authority to do that. 
 
Again, I understand your concerns and appreciate your feedback.  The whole
situation is confusing which is why I have asked the council to provide
clarification on this matter in the first place. 
 
All that said, my current request are as follows: 
 
1) I request that the council provide the required 48 hours notice of
scheduled and rescheduled meetings required by open door, and directly
inform all known interested parties by e-mail, and mailing lists of
meeting changes and cancellations at least 48 hours in advance.  (A policy
not inconsistant with open door or previously established actions.)
 
2) I request that the council not actively try to avoid the public and use
technicalities in law to further their own agendas, to the detriment of
people with disabilities in the State of Indiana. 
 
3) I request my official request located at
http://www.onecandream.com/ICOIL/documents/officialrequestHB1001.doc (now
resubmitted for the 10th time) addressed. 
 
4) I also request you address ICOIL policy and proceedure which allows one
chair to cancel a meeting, and another to be slandered, without due
process. 
 
Also please do not forget the long standing and continuing request that I
actually be provided with evidence of the as yet unsubstantiated
allocations against me. 
 
I appreciate the council clearing up this confusion and addressing my
concerns,
 
Ramona Harvey