Archives for July 2009

From the Coeur d’Alene Press

By TOM HASSLINGER
Staff writer

Man fighting to collect first names to match pay information

COEUR d’ALENE — The city of Coeur d’Alene doesn’t read Idaho code the way other public Idaho entities do.

That’s according to Wayne Hoffman, Idaho Freedom Foundation director, who is compiling a list of financial expenditures and employee salaries from dozens of state, city and county entities for a Web site he’s creating to monitor and promote transparency in government.

Only Coeur d’Alene isn’t fully complying.

It’s “absurd, shallow and indefensible,” Hoffman said of Coeur d’Alene’s refusal to provide all the information Hoffman had requested. “They’re just looking for ways to keep the public from quickly being able to figure out who makes what.”

Citing Idaho’s Freedom of Information Act, Hoffman requested the names and salaries for all of Coeur d’Alene’s 360-plus positions — as he’d already done with roughly two dozen other public entities across the state.

Coeur d’Alene granted Hoffman’s request with the salaries and the last names of its employees. But it did not, and will not, include first names.

Those, the city maintains, are protected.

Not the names themselves but what they might reveal — the employee’s gender.

“Idaho code indicates very clearly that gender doesn’t have to be disclosed,” said Mike Gridley, city attorney. “We’ve honored that statute.”

According to state statute 9-340C under the Idaho Public Records Law manual, records are reserved for a public servant’s employment history, classification, pay grade, salary and the like. Excluded from the public’s right to know is personnel information relating, but not limited to, info regarding sex, race, marital status, birth date and home address.

But Hoffman, a former communication coordinator for ex-Congressman Bill Sali, said he didn’t request the genders, just the names. And Coeur d’Alene’s interpretation of the law is something he’s never come across in his 10 years as government reporter for the Idaho Press-Tribune and the Idaho Statesman, or from the dozen or so entities who have already responded to his request.

His Web site, www.ouridaho.com, is expecting a mid-August launch date. (It’s password access only right now.) Already posted are roughly 30,000 employee positions across the state, including Ada County, the Boise School District and the cities of Nampa and Meridian. It’s 737 pages of names. All include first names. Some even include middle initials.

“It bothers me,” said attorney Allen Derr of Coeur d’Alene’s legal stance. “They’re being unduly creative with the interpretation of the law. First names are a matter of course. Always.”

Derr is a Boise-based lawyer with 50 years of legal experience, which includes cases that have gone before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said he’d never heard of Coeur d’Alene’s application of the law before. Using the city’s logic, he said, a case could be made that last names should be protected because they could reveal an employee’s ethnic background. And ambiguous first names — like Pat, Terry or Francis — would have to be released.

“I’ve never heard of it in this context before,” he said. “Perhaps they’re stretching it.”

But the language is printed, and it may be a matter of interpretation.

After its initial refusal, the city did send the first initial of each employee’s first name to Hoffman. Hoffman said that still isn’t good enough, and he could challenge the city’s decision legally.

“Perhaps it’s for a judge to decide,” Gridley said.

From the Coeur d’Alene Press

From The Spokesman-Review

BY BETSY Z. RUSSELL

BOISE – Idaho Gov. Butch Otter spoke out Tuesday against limiting public information about state land transfers, saying he wants “total and complete transparency.”

The governor’s comments came after a committee of top real estate professionals, asked to review how Idaho could update its rules for transfers of state endowment lands to match “modern business practices,” recommended eliminating the requirement for public auctions and exempting the transactions from the state’s Public Records Act.

Otter immediately objected to the proposed changes, some of which would require amendments to the state Constitution and the Admissions Act, by which Idaho became a state.

“We have to make sure that there is total and complete transparency,” Otter declared. “Taking it off public auction inherently reduces the transparency. … I would have a problem with that.”

Otter said he’d also oppose exempting state land transactions from the public records act. “Oh yeah,” he said, “and I think every member of the board would.”

The state Land Board, which commissioned the report from the committee of professional real estate experts, praised the panel and thanked it for its work, despite objecting to some of its key recommendations.

“This board was formed to look at one narrow issue,” said Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. “There are a lot of other factors we have to take into account … such as can we create a system that will preserve transparency.”

The Land Board is made up of the state’s top elected officials and is charged by the state Constitution with getting the maximum long-term financial return from state endowment lands. Those lands are held in trust to earn money for public schools, universities and other state institutions.

Board members didn’t raise objections to other proposals from the panel, to amend the Constitution to eliminate acreage limits on transfers of state land to a single individual or company. Those limits, according to the panel’s report, “do not conform to modern business practices.”

The panel also proposed allowing sales of state endowment lands “in any reasonable manner” rather than only by public auction; and changing the Admissions Act that made Idaho a state to remove a clause that requires endowment land to be “sold only at public sale,” instead saying they “shall be sold as provided by Idaho law.”

“Our intent was to provide flexibility to the state, then let the state decide through its laws how best to govern these transactions,” said Robert Phillips, president of Hawkins Companies and a commercial real estate developer.

George Kirk, a residential real estate developer and member of the panel, told Otter, “Your points are excellent and well-taken. … There are ramifications both corporate, personal and moral that you bring up.”

The group’s report said, “Participants in private sector and commercial business transactions typically expect confidentiality in negotiations and protection of trade secrets of the parties. Likewise, it is recommended that the same protections be afforded to the state Board of Land Commissioners when negotiating leases, purchases, or sales of state endowment lands,” in order to secure maximum financial returns.

Otter said there might be a point during negotiations when not everything is released, but it would all have to become public eventually, he said.

Though the panel proposed an ambitious timeline, to present its recommendations to the Legislature this year and then get constitutional amendments on the ballot in time for the 2010 election, Land Board members said they thought that was unrealistic.

“It could be worked out this legislative season,” said residential real estate broker Bryant Forrester of Homeland Realty, but state Controller Donna Jones shook her head no.

From The Spokesman-Review

From The Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The University of Idaho refuses to release identities of those investigating whether the head of its Caine Veterinary Teaching and Research Center in Caldwell suppressed a 1994 study on bighorn sheep deaths.

The school’s lawyers said Wednesday the names of people scrutinizing university employees like Caine leader Marie Bulgin amounted to “personnel information relating to a public employee” and are exempt from Idaho public records laws.

The Associated Press had requested investigators’ names.

The UI began its probe in June after media reports of a 1994 study by some of the Caine center’s own staff, including Bulgin’s daughter, that determined bighorns likely catch fatal diseases from domestic sheep on the open range.

Bulgin, a former Idaho Wool Growers Association president, has long contended in federal court and the Idaho Legislature no such evidence existed, as part of her efforts to support ranching and grazing on public land.

Marie Bulgin says she didn’t know of the 1994 study until recently.

From The Associated Press

From the Twin Falls Times News

By Jared S. Hopkins
Times-News writer

Idaho recently ranked worst in the nation for public disclosure laws of its elected state officials just months after the House Speaker killed a measure that would’ve likely elevated its ranking.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity survey, Idaho, Michigan and Vermont are tied for last – no personal financial disclosure laws have ever existed in any of the three states – and didn’t earn any points. All told, 20 of the 50 states are still receiving a failing grade.

Idaho was tied for last in both of the last surveys in 2006 and 1999.

Some legislators at the 2009 session were prepared to increase disclosure under a bipartisan measure sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, and supported by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. Lawmakers and candidates, plus their spouses, would’ve been required to file an annual report of income sources plus a listing of large assets like real estate. Income sources of more than $10,000 would have been required for disclosure.

But House Speaker Lawerence E. Denney, R-Midvale, opposed the measure, calling it unnecessary. He kept it in his desk drawer at the end of the session as the House and Senate wrangled with session-ending politics, stymieing its progress. It had passed the Senate unanimously.

“Citizens have a right to expect a certain amount of basic and personal information about their elected officials,” said Mary Boyle, vice president for communications for the open government group Common Cause. Disclosure laws allow the public “to make a judgment about whether there are conflicts of interest,” Boyle said.

Meanwhile, Louisiana’s ranking in the study jumped to first from 44 in 2006, thanks in part to a sweeping ethics reform package from Gov. Bobby Jindal. The CPI has reported on disclosure requirements in state legislatures since 1999 and bases rankings on a 43-question survey.

Kelly, a champion of ethics reform, said Idaho’s ranking is disappointing but hopes the state makes progress soon.

“It’s about public trust, and people do care about it,” she said. “The people who are in power might not care about it but in terms of establishing public trust in government and their government officials, it is critically important we have strong ethics laws.”

Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, pointed out how some states that received good marks for disclosure are sometimes embroiled in scandals. But he said the Senate made an effort.

“The Senate tried to take some reasonable steps forward that would’ve placed us a lot higher,” he said. “I’m all in favor of appropriate disclosure but for whatever reason that bill was not allowed to proceed.”

From the Twin Falls Times News

From the Idaho Press Tribune

Bryan Dooley
bdooley@idahopress.com
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

NAMPA — An open-government watchdog says Nampa officials are dragging their feet in response to his request for financial records that give employees’ salaries.

But city leaders said they were reluctant to release employee names, which some workers feared could be used to target them for identity theft and other crimes.

Idaho Freedom Foundation Executive Director Wayne Hoffman criticized the slow response to his request for information including names, positions and pay rates for all city employees.

The government transparency group intends to publish the information on its Web site, www.idahofreedom.net, alongside other data to allow taxpayers to track how and where officials spend money.

Hoffman said he submitted his request June 24, and Nampa officials have promised to respond by today. Caldwell, Boise, Canyon and Ada counties and other agencies have responded promptly to similar requests, Hoffman said, and privacy concerns have not been a major issue.

“It’s just not something that should take two weeks to process,” he said.

The former spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bill Sali also said he had received e-mails from about a dozen Nampa employees who did not want the information disclosed.

“Any way you interpret the statute, it says that the name, title and rate of pay of public employees are public record,” Hoffman said. He said he was not aware of any case in which release of such information compromised the safety of a government worker.

Payroll is a large part of most government agencies’ budgets, making transparency and public scrutiny crucial, Hoffman said.

Nampa Mayor Tom Dale said he hoped to discuss the matter and potential unintended consequences further with Hoffman.

“I’m very much in front of helping him in his project, as he calls it, for transparency in government,” Dale said. “I’m just wondering if there’s a way for him to accomplish his goal” without tying employee names to their payroll data.

Dale and City Clerk Diana Lambing were unsure whether the information prepared to submit to Hoffman today would include the names. Lambing said she believed the names had been removed.

Hoffman said he would wait to see whether the names are included before deciding how to move forward. If the names are missing, the response would be out of compliance with his request and state public records laws, he said.

From the Idaho Press Tribune

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Daily News plans to petition court to recover electronic correspondence between Steed, legislator

By Mark Williams, Daily News staff writer

Posted on: Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Idaho law does not restrict government officials from deleting e-mails they received concerning public business, even though those e-mails can be considered public record.

The issue came to light when the Daily News made a public records request to state Rep. John “Bert” Stevenson, R-Rupert, concerning e-mail correspondence between himself and Moscow City Councilman Walter Steed.

The request sought e-mails regarding two proposed bills that would affect Moscow’s ability to sell water across the state line to the Hawkins Companies’ planned retail development in Whitman County.

Both bills, sponsored by Rep. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, died in the House Resources and Conservation Committee after passing overwhelmingly in the Senate, and never reached the House floor.

Stevenson serves as chairman of the House Resources and Conservation Committee. His written reply to the public records request stated he had deleted the messages sent by Steed.

He later said he had not read the majority of Steed’s e-mails.

Stevenson’s written response was reviewed by the state attorney general’s office, which indicated the Daily News would need to petition a court to recover them. Idaho law states a petition must be filed in the district court of the county where the records or some part of them are located.

Though deleted e-mails can be recovered, the process is time-consuming and potentially costly, meaning hordes of potential public records in electronic form may be disappearing before the public can access them.

Daily News Editor and Publisher Nathan Alford said the company plans to take the necessary steps to recover the records.

“Defending the public’s right to know is part of our mission and responsibility, and we’re willing to do what it takes to protect a well-established right,” he said. “Transparency in government is essential.”

E-mails and other records must be retained after a public records request has been made, but Idaho Deputy Attorney General Bill von Tagen said no mechanism exists to compel government officials, including legislators, to keep their e-mails before a request is made.

“We don’t really have a records retention policy,” he said. “There may be other reasons that require them to be saved, but when you’re in a purely political realm I don’t believe that is the case.”

Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, sees the loophole as a problem, but said there has been no pressure from the public or within the Legislature to remedy the law.

“The Legislature certainly doesn’t have (a retention policy) for hard copy or e-mail,” she said.

Kelly is well-versed in public records issues. She and Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, co-sponsored a bill last session that would have required elected officials and candidates to disclose their personal finances, but the proposal was killed before it reached committee.

Kelly previously worked in the attorney general’s office and advised agencies on open records laws.

She said she is not surprised that Idaho hasn’t addressed the law.

“I like to describe Idaho as an analog bubble in the middle of a digital world,” she said. “In terms of what we’re doing from a statutory standpoint, my guess is that we’re probably behind” other states.

House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, said he doesn’t think the situation is a problem.

He said if legislators or interest groups were to discuss something potentially damaging, they wouldn’t do it via e-mail, where they know it can eventually be retrieved.

“Common sense says you wouldn’t think somebody would send something along those lines knowing that it would be a public record,” he said. “Everything we do is out there to be found. I mean, you can say it’s gone, but it’s not really gone.”

Moyle said most legislators delete their e-mails just like everyone else.

“Most guys delete them right away,” he said. “We caution our legislators to be careful with what they do or say. We do our best to keep things above board. We want to keep things in the light.”

Mark Williams can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 301, or by e-mail at mwilliams@dnews.com.

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

From the Idaho Attorney General’s office

(Boise) – Important changes to the Idaho Open Meeting Law take effect today, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said. Wasden led a coalition of local governments, journalists and open government advocates in presenting changes to the 2009 Legislature. The proposals were adopted by the Idaho House of Representatives and the Idaho Senate and signed into law by the Governor.

Under the revised law, public officials are subject to a civil penalty of up to $50 for any violation of the Open Meeting Law. Second and subsequent violations can result in a penalty of up to $500 and any “intentional” violation is subject to a civil penalty of up to $500.

In addition, the new law further restricts the circumstances under which governing bodies of public agencies may meet behind closed doors in “executive session.”

The amendments also clarify the procedure for amending a public meeting agenda before and during the meeting and provide a procedure by which governing bodies of public agencies can cure a violation of the Open Meeting Law.

“Idaho’s Open Meeting Law has been in effect since 1974,” Attorney General Wasden said. “While there have been some changes to the law over the past 35 years, it was in need of revision to ensure the people’s business remains the people’s business. The hard work and foresight of the journalists, local government officials and my staff who worked hard to overhaul this law is commendable. For my part, I will continue to work tirelessly for open government and will recommend legislative changes to help ensure open government.”

From the Idaho Attorney General’s office