The town of Milton is struggling to comply with state laws governing the public’s access to its town council’s recent meetings and activities.
Multiple attempts made in writing, by phone and in person by Western Wayne News to obtain agendas and minutes of recent town council meetings have gone unfulfilled.
Indiana’s public records and open door laws have long required the town to make available agendas for upcoming town council meetings in advance, as well as minutes of past meetings.
A new law that went into effect July 1, 2025 requires the council to livestream video and audio of its meetings when the technical capability exists, and to make archived copies of meeting recordings publicly available.
As of press time, the town’s website page for publishing meeting minutes at townofmilton.in/minutes has not been updated since September 2025.
For meeting recordings, the town website links to a YouTube page at www.youtube.com/@TownofMiltonIndiana that has a single recording listed of the July 8, 2025 meeting.
The town’s list of upcoming council meetings at townofmilton.in/events does not include meeting agendas.
WWN sent email messages to council President Phil Edwards and town Clerk-Treasurer Amy Smith on April 21 and visited town hall on April 22. The requests were forwarded to Smith but did not receive a response.
On April 24, WWN contacted town attorney Christopher T. Armour who said meeting minutes should be posted publicly and that he would check in to getting copies. Neither that request nor follow-up requests to Armour on May 5 by email and May 15 by phone received a further response.
Indiana law also requires bodies that hold public meetings to send notice of the date, time and place of any of its meetings, executive sessions and rescheduled or reconvened meetings to media organizations like the Western Wayne News, as long as the newspaper makes the request in writing before the start of each calendar year.
WWN has sent those requests to the town of Milton every year since at least 2022, including for 2026 meetings. As of press time, WWN has not received the required meeting notifications from Milton for any 2026 meetings.
A version of this article appeared in the May 20 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.
