Archives for May 2010

From the Associated Press

POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) — A government-accountability group says a southeastern Idaho school board held an illegal secret meeting over salary cuts.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation, a free-market advocate, vowed to lodge a complaint in state court against Pocatello’s District 25 school board, whose trustees held a three-hour executive session Saturday morning, followed by a vote to cut administrative salaries by 6.9 percent.

Wayne Hoffman, executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, said such a topic isn’t covered under Idaho’s exemptions to its open meetings law.

Hoffman told The Associated Press on Tuesday he’s worried that school districts across Idaho could opt for similar closed-door meetings as they address budget cuts in 2011. He wants to stop this practice before it spreads.

“What makes the Pocatello school system think that making a decision to either add to or take from a public employee’s salary is confidential somehow?” Hoffman told the Idaho State Journal. “The school board has an obligation to hold a substantive debate about the budget issues confronting the school district in a public setting.”

School district officials referred questions to their lawyer, Brian Julian. Julian said the board acted appropriately, because the closed meeting covered personnel matters.

Julian said he’s dealt with hundreds of such cases over the last decade, “and this is the way it’s done every time.”

The agenda announcing Saturday’s special meeting lists the open meeting law exemption used to base the executive session as: “to consider the evaluation, dismissal or disciplining of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against a public officer, employee, staff member or agent.”

According to the Idaho open meetings manual, the state attorney general believes general personnel matters can’t be the subject of closed-door secret meetings.

Rather, only specific personnel actions — such as hiring or firing a public officer or staff member, or to hear complaints or charges brought against public employees, agents or students — are appropriate to be heard in executive sessions.

Julian, who has handled such cases for 30 years, said he believes hosting the discussion in closed session protects due process rights of employees. He also said a retired judge was listening over the phone and believes the school board had a right to deliberate in private.

“I feel comfortable that the process was appropriate,” Julian said.
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Information from: Idaho State Journal, https://www.journalnet.com

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

From the Associated Press

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in the case of Doe vs. Reed, challenging Washington state’s practice of considering signatures on petitions for a referendum or initiative to be public record, the justices’ questioning showed much concern about openness and transparency; you can see the transcript here (hat tip to Randy Stapilus’ Ridenbaugh Press). Here’s a comment from Justice Antonin Scalia to James Bopp Jr., who was arguing for keeping the names secret: “The fact is that running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage. And the First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate, or to take part in the legislative process. You are asking us to enter into a whole new field where we have never gone before.”

This is a case in which Idaho has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the state of Washington, because Idaho’s laws are similar – and the state wants to keep its initiative and referendum petitions open.

From Eye on Boise, The Spokesman-Review

When the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals holds its first-ever sitting in Pocatello on May 24th, to hear oral arguments in two Idaho cases, it’ll make history in another way as well: Cameras will be allowed in the courtroom. Though cameras are allowed in courtrooms in most state courts, including Idaho’s, under established rules and at the presiding judge’s discretion, they’re banned almost entirely in federal district courts. That crimps TV coverage of federal court proceedings, and is the reason why major federal court cases result in paintings created by sketch artists in courtrooms being published in newspapers and on TV – because actual photos aren’t permitted. The 9th Circuit has been interested in the issue for years, and has allowed cameras in its appellate-level proceedings since 1991; the Pocatello sitting is the latest example. A pilot program also is in the works, at the urging of the 9th Circuit Judicial Council, to have federal district courts in the circuit experiment with permitting cameras in civil non-jury cases, though none have done so yet.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit court, including 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, Senior Judge Stephen S. Trott of Boise and Judge Randy Smith of Pocatello, will hear the two cases in Pocatello; they they are U.S. v. Alfaro, an appeal by a reputed gang leader from Boise who was sentenced to 150 months in prison on gun charges; and Community House Inc. v. Smith, an appeal by the city of Boise on an issue regarding the sale of a city homeless shelter to a religious group. For more on the cameras in the courtroom issue, check out Idaho’s state court rule here; a Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press article on the recent California case that raised this issue here; a TV reporter’s perspective here; and here a legal history of the issue from the First Amendment Center.

From Eye on Boise, The Spokesman-Review