The local Imagine Schools board violated state law by not voting in public on a series of resolutions related to opening two charter schools in Texas, Indiana’s public access counselor ruled.

The ruling by Andrew J. Kossack was prompted by a complaint filed by The Journal Gazette that alleged Imagine Fort Wayne Charter School Inc., the non-profit board that oversees the Imagine MASTer Academy, violated Indiana law that relates to public meetings.

Instead of voting within the public view to create the schools, appoint and remove board members and name their own board president, Don Willis, to head one of the Texas boards, Imagine board members separately signed a resolution giving their consent.

Ball State University is also investigating whether the Imagine board violated state law, the result of a Journal Gazette investigation that described a lack of local control over two charter schools in Fort Wayne.

“The (Open Door Law) explicitly states that ‘final action must be taken at a meeting open to the public. Final action means a vote by the governing body on any motion, proposal, resolution, rule, regulations, ordinance or order,’ ” Kossack wrote.

In a response sent to the public access counselor before this week’s ruling, Willis disagreed that the board violated state law. Because the resolutions were not signed in a meeting, the board did not violate the Open Door Law, Willis said, and he wrote the scope of the law “is limited to action taken by public bodies at governing body meetings.”

Because every board member signed the resolution, thus voicing unanimous support, Willis wrote the public was not harmed because there wasn’t any dissent to be noted.

“The matters addressed were largely procedural matters for which the board used written consents simply as a matter of convenience, rather than to avoid a different outcome in a public meeting setting,” Willis wrote.

Imagine’s board was operating under the impression that a law pertaining to Indiana’s non-profit boards would allow it to adopt a written consent in lieu of approving the matters during a public meeting, Kossack wrote. But Kossack wrote that Imagine’s role overseeing a charter school supersedes its non-profit board status, thus requiring it to approve items in a public setting.

Willis wrote that the Imagine board also wasn’t in violation because the board ratified the resolutions in an open meeting Nov. 18. That was 18 months after the resolutions were first signed and one week after the newspaper filed the complaint with the public access counselor.

But during that meeting, a non-board member voted on the resolutions, making it unclear whether the votes would stand. Willis did not return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday night.

The board is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. today, and the resolutions are on the agenda to be voted on again.

If the votes were to be challenged by a lawsuit, Indiana law states a judge can declare the actions wrong, halt the board from continuing to approve items by resolutions or void any action taken.

The Journal Gazette also filed a complaint with the public access counselor that Imagine violated the Access to Public Records Act by not turning over the resolutions when the newspaper filed an initial request for meeting minutes. The public access counselor ruled Imagine was not in violation of the law on this matter because it eventually turned over the resolutions – the third time they were requested.

ksoderlund@jg.net