Archives for April 2006

From the Idaho Statesman

Legal fees for commissioners who held closed meeting may hit $30,000

By Brad Hern
Idaho Statesman

Ada County taxpayers’ cost to defend their three county commissioners from each paying $150 fines could exceed $30,000 and might climb even higher.

Last month, Senior Judge William H. Woodland ruled the commissioners — Rick Yzaguirre, Judy Peavey-Derr and Fred Tilman — broke the state’s open meetings law when they held a closed-door meeting with Boise City Councilman Vern Bisterfeldt on June 15.

The commissioners have said they disagree with the decision and plan to appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court.

In court papers filed April 19, Deputy Attorney General William von Tagen asked Woodland to award the state attorney fees of $12,829.
The commissioners’ legal fees already were up to $17,781, so the additional fees from the state would take the taxpayers’ total tab to $30,610.

The commissioners’ attorney, Patrick Furey, has agreed to handle the Supreme Court appeal at no additional cost, but if the county loses on appeal, the AG’s office is expected to ask for more legal fees to cover the cost of fighting the appeal.

“Despite this understanding (that the maximum penalty for each commissioner was $150), (the commissioners) chose to undertake an aggressive defensive posture by filing not just an answer, but also a counterclaim and a 44-page response to the state’s motion for judgment, which ultimately failed,” von Tagen wrote. “While failing to achieve their goal, (the commissioners’) aggressive posture succeeded in driving up attorneys fees for the state. Now, (the commissioners) have informed this court and the state that they intend to drive the costs and fees for the state even further by planning to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.”

The case stems from the June 15 meeting when commissioners met with Bisterfeldt behind closed doors. Records of the meeting indicate they discussed relations between the city and county, and the possibility of lawsuits over large planned communities.

State law allows government bodies to meet in executive sessions on rare occasions to consider personnel matters, labor negotiations, lawsuits and other sensitive issues.

The commissioners closed their meeting with Bisterfeldt because, they said, the possibility of a lawsuit existed.

But no lawyer was in the room to give advice, as is required by state law.

Under Idaho law, the commissioners would pay the $150 fines out of their own pockets, but their legal defense fees are covered by taxpayers because the commissioners were acting in their official capacity.

That’s a problem, said Tony Jones, a county resident who filed the initial complaint with prosecutors regarding the open meeting violation.

“I honestly believe that this should be out of the commissioners’ own private pocket,” he said. “The fine would have been.”

Woodland might not award attorney fees in the case.

State statute and case law say such fees should be reserved for frivolous or unreasonable lawsuits.

Furey responded to von Tagen’s motion Wednesday, saying the case had merit, and the request for attorney fees should be denied.
In a written statement, the commissioners said they are appealing Woodland’s decision because they want clarification of the law, which affects all elected governing bodies in Idaho.

The commissioners say it is unclear whether an attorney must be present in executive sessions that are called to discuss potential or probable litigation.

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Associated Press

By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – The Senate voted 26-8 Wednesday evening to impose strict limits on when its committees can close their meetings to the public, a move applauded by some as a sage plan even as Democrats in the chamber called for a more expansive policy that would keep all meetings open.

A single Republican _ Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow _ joined the minority Democrats to vote against the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and other proponents of the new rules say they strike a balance, keeping most meetings open but allowing the chamber latitude to meet behind closed doors in rare instances.

Before the changes, closed sessions could be held for any reason.

Now, executive sessions will have to be announced a day in advance, they can only occur with two-thirds member consent and the only matters that can be discussed are records exempted from public disclosure, pending litigation, personnel matters, security issues such as terrorist threats and consideration of property purchases.

“It is the narrowest policy in the history of Idaho,” Davis said before the vote.

The Senate’s move came after it won a March 20 Idaho Supreme Court ruling that open meetings provisions in the Idaho Constitution were intended to apply just to general floor sessions, but not legislative committee meetings.

That left it up to lawmakers to make their own committee rules.

The court case had been brought by the Idaho Press Club after some committee meetings were closed in 2003 and 2004. Among those were sessions during which lawmakers negotiated a landmark water rights settlement with the Nez Perce Tribe. A judge had required those water rights sessions to be confidential.

Leaders of the media group, whose members include TV, radio and print journalists, said they were satisfied with Wednesday’s changes _ especially after senators agreed not to eliminate an Idaho statute, passed in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, that said all committee meetings must be open to the public. Instead, Davis agreed to amend it so that it matches the new Senate rule allowing closed committee meetings in rare instances.

“We can live with this,” said Betsy Russell, Idaho Press Club president and a reporter at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. “Since our lawsuit was filed, no more closed meetings have been held. As a state, we are now far better off in ensuring openness in our legislative process than we were when we started this.”

The group has raised more than $25,000 for its lawsuit, but still faces thousands in costs.

Meanwhile, Democrats including House Minority Leader Clint Stennett, of Ketchum, and Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, said the new rules fell short of complete openness.

Though Stennett wrote in a Jan. 14, 2004, letter to Davis that he agreed some circumstances might require committee meetings to be closed, the minority party has since closed ranks and favors opening all meetings.

The new rules “leave open a pretty wide door,” said Kelly. “Not that it will be abused, but that it has the potential to be abused.”

The Common Interest, a group of 850 self-proclaimed Idaho political moderates that formed in 2005, said the new rules made sense. In a poll last year, its members agreed there were reasons to close some committee meetings _ for instance, pending litigation could call for the kind of discretion afforded only by a closed session, the group members said.

But they said those instances should be clearly defined and as few as possible, said Keith Allred, the group’s president.

“I think it’s a model rule,” he said.

House lawmakers, including Majority Leader Lawerence Denny, R-Midvale, said late Wednesday they were still considering similar changes to their committee rules, though there’s some debate whether a revamp is necessary.

Denney said an existing House rule that allows committee meetings to be closed for any reason with a two-third vote of members “has served us well,” adding that some expressed concern that making changes akin to the Senate’s could cause “unnecessary problems” in the future.

From the Associated Press