JOHN E. SETTLE JR
Title 42 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes is the Open Meetings Law. R.S. 42:13 A.(3 ) defines a "public body" subject to this law to include "airport commissions" and "any committee or subcommittee" of the same. For some unexplained reason the Shreveport Airport Authority and its board members do not adhere to this law.
The current members of the Shreveport Airport Authority (SAA) board are Waynette Ballengee, Jonathan Reynolds, Oliver Jenkins and Kay Medlin. There is one board vacancy.
Ballengee is a long time board member.
Reynolds has been the subject of litigation over his re-appointment to the board.
Oliver Jenkins served two terms on the Shreveport city council.
Kay Medlin is a partner is a prestigious local law firm.
The Shreveport City Attorney"s office sends an attorney to the SAA board meetings.
The Dec. 2021 minutes of the SAA regular meeting include reports on five committee meetings.
NONE of these committee meetings were noticed under the Louisiana Open Meetings law.
Seemingly, these four board members, the city attorney representative and the airport staff including long time employees Stacy Kuba and Mark Crawford are aware - or should be aware- of the requirements of the Open Meetings law.
Simply put, a gathering of a quorum of a public body or a meeting of a committee of the body to conduct any business of the body is presumed to be a meeting and thus subject to the requirements of the Open Meeting law.
The Open Meetings law requires that a notice of the meeting at least 24 hours before the meeting must be published.
None of the five committees that rendered reports at the Dec. authority meeting had been preceded by a 24 hour notice. Thus, all of these meetings were conducted in violation of the Open Meetings law.
When is the SAA going to comply with the most basic of laws concerning public government meetings?
Maybe you should ask Ballengee (waynetteballengee@gmail.com), Reynolds (johnathanr@cartercu.org), Jenkins (jenkins.oliver@hotmail.com), and/or Medlin (kmedlin@bradleyfirm.com).