From The Spokesman-Review

It was standing-room only in Sandpoint late last week as 75-plus people filled the Sandpoint Library’s community room for a three-hour workshop on Idaho’s open meeting and public records laws. There were four such sessions in North Idaho in as many days, all sponsored by Idahoans for Openness in Government and featuring Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.

Those attending ranged from the county sheriff to local elected officials to government employees, reporters, a newly elected state lawmaker and lots of interested citizens. However, the Bonner County Daily Bee, which co-sponsored the session, pointed out the next day that Sandpoint city officials skipped the workshop – and held a controversial, closed-to-the-public meeting about oil and coal train traffic in the region the same afternoon.

Mayor Carrie Logan said, “We had meetings scheduled. Nobody was prevented from attending.”

She said she never heard about the open meetings workshop until the day before, though IDOG had mailed a letter and flier to the city three weeks in advance and followed up with emails to the mayor and council the week before. “It got buried in my onslaught of emails,” Logan said.

City Attorney Scot Campbell said in an email, “I, along with other council members have attended your previous open meeting/public record seminars.” (Disclosure: I’m the president of IDOG, Idaho’s nonprofit open government coalition, and helped conduct all four sessions.)

At the Sandpoint open meetings and public records workshop, Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane told the crowd, “When in doubt, open it up.” He said, “In the simplest terms, the Open Meeting Law is your ticket to the show, and the show is government.”

The coal train meeting was an informational session, Logan said, designed to allow a presentation on the latest information about the risks of the train traffic to an invited group including the mayors of Dover, Ponderay and Bonners Ferry, state Sen. Shawn Keough, two staffers from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, one county commissioner, the mayor and one city council member.

“It was just informational on behalf of people that are interested in spreading the word about the oil and coal issues,” Logan said. The PowerPoint presentation from the meeting may be presented later to the other cities’ councils, she said.

During the meeting, a member of the public knocked on the door, entered and asked if it was an open meeting; he was told no and turned away.

“No decisions were made – it was a conversation,” Logan said. “It never occurred to me to notice it up as a public meeting. … It just didn’t rise to that.”

Campbell noted that no quorum was present of any government board that could make a decision on the issue, so technically there was no violation of the Idaho Open Meeting Law. “Based on the time constraints, a public meeting would not have been as effective as a small meeting of local leaders talking to Senator Keough,” he said.

Asked if it would have hurt to let the public in, Logan said it wouldn’t, but added, “We were in a small, cramped room.”

Wasden, the lead presenter at the open meetings and public records workshop, told the Sandpoint crowd, “It’s important that we have an understanding about how to access information in our government. It’s really important, and the reason for that is the greatest strength in our system is public involvement. … Our system works because people can have access to information.”

The sessions featured interactive skits, with audience members playing the roles, to demonstrate how the Open Meeting Law and Public Records Act are supposed to work – or in some cases, how they’re not. Attendees gave the sessions high marks in evaluations; all left with multiple handouts including copies of the attorney general’s manuals on the Open Meeting Law and Public Records Act.

The Sandpoint session was the 33rd open government seminar IDOG and Wasden have conducted in Idaho since 2004. The project is funded in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation through the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

Eighty people attended the Wednesday evening session in Coeur d’Alene; close to 30 on Tuesday night in Moscow; and close to 50 on Monday night in Lewiston. The sessions reached more than 230 people in North Idaho all told. All were free and open to the public.

In each case, the local newspapers co-sponsored the workshops; the Coeur d’Alene session was co-sponsored by the Coeur d’Alene Press and The Spokesman-Review.

Welcoming the crowd in Coeur d’Alene, Press managing editor Mike Patrick said if the two competing newspapers can work together to promote better knowledge of the state’s open government laws, everyone can.

From The Spokesman-Review

From the Coeur d’Alene Press

From the Coeur d’Alene Press

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said there is one sheet of music used by every individual in the public sector as it relates to providing Idahoans with information.

At the Best Western Plus Coeur d’Alene Inn on Wednesday night, Wasden led a workshop intended to provide insight and clarity into that sheet of music – commonly known as state statute.

Wadsen and Idahoans for Openness in Government, a nonprofit coalition which promotes freedom of information, have held 32 of the seminars throughout the state since 2004. At the center of the sessions are two state laws – Idaho Open Meeting Law and Idaho Public Records Law – which directly affect information both the media and the general public can obtain from public entities.

“The great strength of our American system is public participation. The great weakness of our American system is public participation, or actually a lack thereof,” Wasden said. “So in order for us to enhance that experience of participation in government, it’s important that you understand the rules by which you access information and watch government in operation.”

Members of the public, local media and public officials composed the more than 80 people in attendance at the event, which was co-sponsored by the Coeur d’Alene Press and the Spokesman-Review.

The workshop centered around a series of skits performed by members of the media and public officials, used to illustrate various components of the two state laws. Actors in the skits played roles opposite of the ones they find themselves in professionally.

One skit, which dealt with the quorum component of open meeting law, featured three journalists playing county commissioners eating breakfast at a coffee shop. Kootenai County Commissioner Dan Green played a newspaper reporter who just happened to sit next to the group.

During the skit, the three county commissioners begin talking about implementing decisions on everything from a pesky county prosecutor to the construction of a nuclear plant next to a wildlife preserve. Green, in his role as a reporter, was noticeably excited about his good fortune while rapidly taking notes.

“Hold it! I’m blowing the whistle and throwing the flag,” Wasden finally said, bringing the skit to a close. “There’s no question about it that there was indeed illegal procedure in this one. If a governing body meets outside of a posted public meeting and conducts its business, they can each face a penalty that they have to pay out of their own pocket.”

After the skit, Idaho Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane gave an overview of the state’s open meeting laws. He called the statute one of the most important laws in the state and said it applies to the majority of governing bodies at every level.

“Government is a trusteeship,” Kane said. “We trust the government to make decisions with our best interests in mind. Open meeting law is your (the public’s) ticket to watch the show. The whole point of it is for citizens to be able to watch their government in action.”

In the first of three skits on public records law, Spokesman-Review reporter Scott Maben played the role of a county commissioner trying to get a county prosecutor, played by Coeur d’Alene Press reporter Devin Heilman, to limit the release of inter-office emails to a local newspaper.

During the skit, Maben argued that the emails, which contained threats to public employees if they spoke to the local paper, were personnel matters and shouldn’t be released. Heilman patiently tried to explain why those emails were in fact public record and had to be released under state law.

“Just calling a record a personnel record doesn’t make it one,” Wasden said after the skit concluded. “A personnel record is only information you would find in an employee’s file.”

For more information on Idaho’s Public Records and Open Meeting Laws, visit the Attorney General’s Office website at www.ag.idaho.gov.

From the Coeur d’Alene Press

From Eye on Boise/The Spokesman-Review

More than 45 people gathered at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston last night for the first of four open-government workshops in North Idaho this week featuring Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. The free sessions, sponsored by Idahoans for Openness in Government, or IDOG (full disclosure – I’m IDOG’s president), cover how to comply with Idaho’s two key open government laws, the Idaho Open Meeting Law and the Idaho Public Records Act, and are for local and state government officials and employees, reporters, editors and photographers from all media, and interested citizens.

Monday night’s session, co-sponsored by the Lewiston Tribune included interactive skits in which audience members took on roles, including the one pictured above, in which Doug Bauer of the Tribune portrayed a county prosecutor and Jaynie Bentz of the Port of Lewiston a county commissioner, helping illustrate the do’s and don’ts and generating laughs along the way. Lewiston Tribune Publisher Butch Alford, at left, guaranteed the session would be worth the price of admission, or he’d refund double the price.

Among the issues that came up during the session: Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane noted that members of public boards shouldn’t be texting one another during meetings. “We’ve actually had cases of folks texting during a meeting and not having the discussion,” he said. “If you’re texting during the meeting, you’re robbing the public of the purpose of the Open Meeting Law.” Plus, he noted, those texts become public records and the public’s entitled to see them.

He also emphasized a line in the Open Meeting Law that says the “mere presence of legal counsel” does not justify a closed executive session; the law requires more than that. “The corollary to that is folks will send an email and copy it to their attorney, and claim it’s attorney-client privilege” to evade the public records law, Kane said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

When an audience member asked where notice should be posted if a board meeting is held at a board member’s home, the answer was: That’s not advised. A public meeting means anyone can come in, even to that home. But if that’s the place, notice must be posted somewhere prominent, like on the front door or the mailbox out front.

Additional IDOG workshops will be held tonight in Moscow; Wednesday night in Coeur d’Alene; and Thursday afternoon in Sandpoint. There are details here on locations, times and how to RSVP.

From Eye on Boise/The Spokesman-Review