Under Ohio’s Public Records Act, a person who seeks public records from a government office has the choice of inspecting those records, or obtaining copies.¹ If the requester opts for copies, he or she must then choose whether to receive the records (1) on paper, (2) on the same medium as the public office keeps them, or (3) on any other medium upon which the public office determines the records can “reasonably be duplicated as an integral part of the normal operations of the public office.”²

At 8 a.m. every Tuesday, you can count on seeing two members of Brighton’s three-person village council sharing breakfast at the Cup’a Sunshine Coffee Shop. Sometimes the conversation wanders into a discussion of council business. Is this a “meeting?”

In the midst of a natural disaster, pandemic influenza or other widespread calamity, must a public body still follow the Open Meetings Act, including the requirement that members attend in person? For the most part, the answer is Yes. 

First, if the normal meeting place of the public body is available, even during a declared emergency, there is no relaxation of any requirement of Ohio Revised Code Section 121.22, the Open Meetings Act.