Archives for February 2007

From the Idaho Falls Post-Register

Feb 14,2007 – Marty Trillhaase – IDAHO FALLS POST REGISTER

Seventeen years ago, Idaho lawmakers adopted this simple premise: When it comes to government records, the public’s business is public. Closed records are the exception, not the rule.

In a new bill, the state Agriculture Department wants to turn that sound idea upside down. It’s focused on a couple of laboratories — one for seeds and another for animal health — which perform tests for producers. A farmer may want to know the percentage of his seed that germinates and how pure that seed is. A rancher may want to test his herd for bovine viral diarrhea. Ag’s case comes down to this: The information presents no public health threat. It’s more of a trade secret — competitors would love to know about it. And under the current law, those competitors are entitled to obtain it.

Those labs depend on producer-initiated testing for half their budgets and a good share of their work load. Testing done to enforce state agricultural regulations is a matter of public record.

So if producers seek out private testing — inevitably from out-of-state firms — the state labs would be undermined. Moreover, Ag would have a less complete picture of what’s going on in the state.

Nevertheless, these are taxpayer-funded facilities. If there’s a market for confidential testing, perhaps Idaho’s economy could develop private labs.

Ag has backed off from its initial stance — it wanted to include results from its dairy and plant pathology labs under the security blanket. And new Director Celia Gould comes to this post with a proven record of openness in government.

Still, it wasn’t that long ago that former Director Pat Takasugi had to be dragged into the Idaho Supreme Court because he sought to hide so-called “nutrient management plans” — how large feedlots plan to handle huge amounts of animal wastes — by sending them back to the feedlot owners.

Moreover, you don’t have to try very hard to find producers who complain about Ag’s testing program. So who is served by shielding Ag from public scrutiny — the producers or the agency?

Then there’s the precedent. Ag is not seeking merely the authority to deny some public records requests on the grounds of trade secrets, for instance. (That s been a common practice — lawmakers have closed 82 categories of records since 1990).

Here, Ag wants to start from the premise that all of these records are beyond the public’s grasp — unless the director decides differently. That’s a lot of discretion to put in the hands of a gubernatorial appointee.

What’s next? How long will it take for Gould’s counterparts at Health and Welfare, state prisons or the Department of Environmental Quality to seek similar authority?

Let’s not travel this path.

From the Idaho Falls Post-Register

From the Spokesman-Review

Feb 10,2007 – Taryn Brodwater – SPOKESMAN REVIEW

The Idaho Department of Insurance is investigating an insurance fraud complaint against two commissioners for the Northern Lakes Fire Protection District.

Commissioner Larry House leveled allegations against Commissioner Terry Thompson and Chairwoman Lynda Thurman in December.

House told the Kootenai County Sheriffs Department that Thompson twice declined health insurance coverage through the fire district, then later asked a secretary to add him to the plan “because he had developed a heart condition and realized he needed insurance to cover it,” according to a sheriffs report released Friday.

Thompson told secretary Valerie Knapp he needed the insurance request “back-dated” to Aug. 1, House said in the report.

Though Thompson is employed with the Spokane Valley Fire Department, he allegedly didn’t want to make a claim under the department’s insurance plan “fearing that he would be taken off his normal duties due to a heart condition,” House told the Sheriffs Department.

Thompson said Friday he had seen the sheriffs report and it was “inaccurate.” “If you print anything on the police report it’s going to be inaccurate,” he said.

Asked what was inaccurate, Thompson said, “I’m not going to go into that.”

In a Dec. 26 interview, he refused to discuss his request for insurance coverage.

House told the Sheriffs Department that Commissioner Larry Clark refused to sign the letter requesting coverage back to Aug. 1 and Knapp went to Thurman, who signed.

Thurman said previously she didn’t know until after signing the letter that another commissioner had refused to sign.

But House said Thurman “signed the letter knowing that it was previously denied,” according to the sheriffs report. Thurman and House did not return calls seeking comment.

Northern Lakes Fire Chief Marion Blackwell referred all questions to the district’s attorney, Larry Beck. Clark also referred questions to Beck, saying the elected commissioners had agreed to have him “speak for the district.” Beck did not return a call Friday afternoon.

Clark said he was surprised the Sheriffs Department released the report. He said he hadn’t seen a copy and “was under the impression it wasn’t being given out publicly.”

Commissioner Dennis Arnende said he was “out of the loop.” “They told me nothing,” he said. “Until this all gets settled, I’d just as soon stay out of it anyway.”

Minutes of a Dec. 18 meeting showed all five commissioners present when Thompson’s request for coverage was discussed. The minutes note that “there was disagreement on the appropriateness of the request.” Thurman left the executive session after about 20 minutes, according to the record, and discussion continued.

House told the Sheriffs Department that Clark asked Thompson during the meeting if he had advised the district’s insurer of his heart condition and if he’d submitted a claim for reimbursement. House said Thompson replied he had not and became upset after further questioning. Thompson then reportedly said, “If it means so much to Commissioner Clark, I’ll cancel the claim,” the report stated.

House said Thurman became upset when she was asked why she signed the letter, “stormed” out of the room and began crying, according to the report.

The Northern Lakes Fire Protection District rejected a public records request from The Spokesman-Review seeking the letter Thurman signed.

Attorney Beck wrote in a Feb. 2 letter that Chief Blackwell had told him to deny the request because “it contains personnel information that is exempt from disclosure.” Beck’s denial said the document ” was intended to be kept confidential.”

Kootenai County sheriffs Capt. Ben Wolfinger said the Sheriffs Department turned the investigation over to the Idaho Department of Insurance because it’s within “their field of expertise.”

From the Spokesman-Review

From the Twin Falls Times-News

Feb 3,2007 – Matt Christensen – TWIN FALLS TIMES-NEWS
BOISE – A House bill regarding public records is ruffling the feathers of environmental groups, but the bill’s supporters say the hubbub is a misunderstanding over wording.

The Idaho State Department of Agriculture wants the Legislature to pass a bill that would keep its laboratories’ test results confidential. Environmentalists say the bill’s wording is unclear , and withholding information from the public is un-American.

“We had a lot of folks jump to the conclusion that the bill covers water-quality samples and things like that,” said John Chatburn, deputy administrator in the ISDA’s division of animal industries. “And it doesn’t.”

House Bill No. 59 would seal ISDA lab results from the public. The agency sends tests involving environmental issues to non-ISDA labs, and those test results, Chatburn said, would remain in the public domain.

Others aren’t sure that’s true.

The wording in the bill makes unclear exactly which lab results would be kept confidential, said Courtney Washburn, community conservation director for the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental and watchdog group. “We’re not sure what the bill would entail,” she said.

That seems to be the consensus of environmentalists statewide, including Parma resident Alma Hasse, who used lab test results to shut down a Washington County dairy last spring.

“By attempting to shield more information from the public, it seems to me that we need to look even harder at what’s going on,” said Hasse, who has accused state agencies of stonewalling public-records requests.

That’s not what this bill is about, said Chatburn. The motivation behind the bill is, in part, to protect companies from trade-secret thefts, he said.

“The bill would protect the information that comes from tests we run for companies,” he said, “when (the tests) don’t involve enforcement activities.”

The bill leaves it up to the ISDA director to determine which lab results become public, and that raises the concern of at least one legislator in the committee in which the bill was presented.

“That’s putting up a flag for everybody,” said Donna Pence, D-Gooding, who sits on the House Agricultural Affairs Committee. “I’d like to see a whole lot more information on this, because it seems to me, and a whole lot of other people, that (ISDA) just slammed the door on public records.”

The bill is yet to be placed on the committee’s calendar, but it’s likely it will be discussed in the coming weeks.

From the Twin Falls Times-News