From the Post Register

A former Melaleuca Inc. employee being sued by the company said he won’t get a fair trial if District Judge Darren Simpson remains on the case.

In court documents filed Friday, Jeff Wasden said the judge should be disqualified from the case because Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot publicly and financially supported Simpson’s successful effort to knock off sitting Judge James Herndon last year.

“The financial and public support of Melaleuca was instrumental in obtaining the results of Judge Simpson being elected,” say the documents filed by Wasden’s attorney, Ron Swafford. “It is my firm opinion and belief that unquestionably Judge Simpson feels gratitude toward Frank VanderSloot and Melaleuca.”

VanderSloot and his wife,

Belinda, through donations to an anti-Herndon group called Citizens for Justice and through direct payments for advertising, spent nearly $16,000 to help Simpson win office.

VanderSloot said Friday that he believes Simpson would do a good job on his case but can see where people might have concerns. It might be better for everybody, VanderSloot said, if Simpson walked away.

“I think there could be a perception of unfairness,” VanderSloot said. “I wouldn’t want that for the judge or for us.”

Melaleuca’s attorney, Curt Thomsen, said he doesn’t care who the judge is.

“I’ll be happy to have Judge (John) Shindurling,” Thomsen said. “I don’t care. We weren’t judge shopping in the first place.”

The decision rests completely in Simpson’s hands.

Both sides in a civil suit can disqualify one judge for no reason.

But both sides have already used their free pass in this case. Wasden disqualified District Judge Greg Anderson last month, and Melaleuca disqualified District Judge Richard St. Clair earlier this month.

Friday’s motion adds to what is already a complex case.

Wasden was formerly Melaleuca’s vice president of marketing. The company claims in its suit that Wasden violated a separation agreement by recruiting key employees. Wasden denies this and in a counter claim, accused the company of breach of contract and VanderSloot of defamation.

Melaleuca has asked the court to seal all documents in the case because “it is highly likely that (Wasden) will file documents with this Court, give deposition testimony, and in other ways divulge and make (Melaleuca’s) sensitive, confidential and proprietary information a matter of public record,” the company said Tuesday in a motion.

Simpson is scheduled to hear arguments on this issue Tuesday.

Also scheduled for discussion on that day is a temporary restraining order issued March 22 by Shindurling that prevents Wasden from disclosing confidential information “regarding Melaleuca or its products” to any third parties, including current or former Melaleuca employees.

That order is good for 14 days from the day it was issued. Melaleuca wants it made permanent. Swafford said the ruling is so “broad and obscure” that it’s impossible to know what is considered confidential and that it prevents his client from speaking to witnesses about his case.

From the Post Register

From the Post Register

District Court Judge Darren Simpson on Monday removed himself from a case involving his primary benefactor during last year’s election.

Melaleuca Inc. is suing its former vice president for marketing, Jeff Wasden, for allegedly violating a separation agreement by recruiting key employees.

Wasden denies the charge and in a counter claim has accused his former employer of breach of contract and Melaleuca Chief Executive Officer Frank VanderSloot of defamation.

On Friday, Wasden filed court documents asking Simpson to leave the case.

Wasden said that because VanderSloot publicly and financially supported Simpson’s campaign, he wouldn’t get a fair trial.

On Monday, three days after Wasden asked him to step down, Simpson initiated a conference call between Melaleuca’s attorney, Curt Thomsen, and Wasden’s lawyer, Ron Swafford.

At that time, Simpson told the lawyers he would leave the case.

According to Swafford, Simpson said the appearance of impropriety compelled him to step down.

Simpson, through his secretary, confirmed Monday that he had left the case but said he didn’t have time to answer questions, such as whether the move sets a precedent that will keep him from ever presiding over a case involving Melaleuca or VanderSloot.

VanderSloot on Friday said he thought Simpson would do a good job but that he could see where people might have concerns about the judge remaining on the case.

Campaign finance records show that VanderSloot and his wife, Belinda, spent nearly $16,000 in helping Simpson defeat incumbent James Herndon.

Seventh Judicial District Trial Court Administrator Burton Butler said Monday that the case had been transferred to District Judge Brent Moss.

Several key issues in the case were scheduled to be addressed today in a hearing. But Deputy Clark Angie Wood said Monday that the hearing would very likely be postponed.

Melaleuca is asking the court to seal all documents in the case. Also, a temporary restraining order that prevents Wasden from disclosing confidential information about the company or its products is set to expire this week.

Melaleuca wants the order made permanent. Swafford said it prevents his clients from speaking to witnesses about his case.

Government reporter Corey Taule can be reached at 542-6754.

From the Post Register

Editorial from the Post Register

As important as open courts are to the public, the issue is even more vital to eastern Idaho’s judicial system. Credibility is one commodity eastern Idaho courts can ill afford to lose.

At issue is Melaleuca’s attempt to cut off public access to its legal dispute with its former vice president for marketing, Jeff Wasden. Melaleuca is concerned Wasden may disclose trade secrets in the proceedings. The company has every right to protect proprietary information.

But Melaleuca is asking Judge Brent Moss of Rexburg for an order “sealing the court’s entire file and closing all courtroom proceedings to the public.”

That’s taking a meat cleaver approach to a situation requiring surgical precision, a case-by-case review rather than a blanket order. Imagine if Moss grants the motion: How would you ever open the proceedings later on? Would you learn how this case turns out? How much trust would you have in any trial you can’t attend and in which the case files become a state secret?

Past Supreme Court rulings on the topic lead to a pair of themes: People have a right to open courtrooms. Openness is a check on arbitrary courtroom decisions. And the courts need the public’s trust. Secret star chambers erode that confidence. These interests are mutual.

This is a symbiotic relationship. Our system of government depends on it. The courts are a bulkhead against misbehavior — from other branches of government, from private individuals and from organizations. If people lose confidence in the system’s transparency and impartiality, if they come to believe the system plays favorites or makes decisions in private, the courts lose their moral authority.

Sadly, eastern Idahoans have experienced that loss of faith. Without this newspaper’s investigation and legal efforts to pry open a pair of sealed Bonneville County files, the efforts of local Boy Scout officials to conceal sexual abuse of Scouts by camp staff members would have prevailed.

Former Idaho Falls Prosecutor Kimball Mason is going to serve at least four years in prison for stealing guns from the Idaho Falls Police. It’s the rare prosecutor who gets in trouble, let alone ends up convicted of not one but two felonies and is sent to prison for it.

And that happened right here in the 7th Judicial District.

So as he takes up the Melaleuca motion, Judge Moss will be serving his profession’s own interests best by serving yours.

Marty Trillhaase

Case facts

Melaleuca’s motion asking for an order “sealing the court’s entire file and closing all courtroom proceedings to the public” was to be heard Tuesday — but was delayed when Seventh District Judge Brent Moss of Rexburg took over.

Judge Darren Simpson of Blackfoot stepped down after Wasden’s lawyers argued he’d been compromised. Simpson’s successful 2006 race against former Judge James Herndon got a $16,000 assist from Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot and his wife Belinda.

Moss is the fourth judge assigned to the case. Lawyers for former Melaleuca Vice President for Marketing Jeff Wasden exercised their right to disqualify District Judge Greg Anderson. Next assigned to the case was District Judge Richard St. Clair, and Melaleuca’s attorney’s moved to remove him from hearing the case.

Editorial from the Post Register

From the Boise Weekly

By Shea Andersen

The Boise Weekly’s efforts to open a sealed state investigation into Intermountain Hospital have stalled, for now, after a ruling from District Court.

In a ruling issued late Tuesday, Judge Michael McLaughlin ruled against the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and BW, both of whom had resisted a move to seal the state’s records of its investigation into the conduct of the troubled psychiatric hospital.

BW has yet to decide whether it will appeal the decision, according to publisher Sally Freeman.

Deputy Attorney General Robert Luce, who represents the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, was not immediately available for comment.

“I am surprised by the decision,” said David Gratton, BW’s attorney from the firm Evans, Keane LLP. “The people of the state should be entitled to information the state gathers relative to the conduct of people licensed by the state.”

At question is whether an investigation into the operations of Intermountain Hospital’s residential teen care unit is a public record. BW had requested a copy of the investigation’s findings in December, under the Idaho Open Records Act. According to the Idaho Statesman, that newspaper and KTVB Channel 7 made similar requests.

Intermountain, located at 303 N. Allaumbaugh, is Boise’s only private psychiatric facility. Over several years it has been the subject of numerous complaints for understaffing, patient assaults on staff and fellow patients, medication errors, inappropriate discharges for financial reasons and, in one case settled out of court, the wrongful death of a teenage patient (BW News, “A Gathering Storm, 08/02/2006). The most recent incidents involved what adolescent patients and their parents referred to as a “riot” that required intervention by Boise police. Intermountain has temporarily closed the unit.

When they began their investigation, Health and Welfare spokesman Ross Mason confirmed that Intermountain’s violations are potentially serious enough to put its licensure into question.

Within a month, Intermountain had filed a complaint in District Court to keep those documents closed. They won a temporary restraining order from District Judge Joel Horton, who agreed with Intermountain that release of the investigation’s records would result in “immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage.” Judge Horton, who has since recused himself from the case, ordered all records of the case sealed.

At the hearing last week, Intermountain attorney Mark Peterson told Judge McLaughlin said the investigation contained sensitive information about patients and staff, and should remain closed.

“Intermountain feels an obligation to do what it can to see that these records are protected,” Peterson said.

Peterson also said release of the documents could have a “chilling effect” on any such hospital’s desire to seek an operating license with the state of Idaho.

From the Boise Weekly

From The Idaho Falls Post-Register

The FCC announced Monday it was granting license renewal to KID-AM 590, overruling objections to comments made by Trish Oak and Halli Stone while on the air.

Mar 13,2007 – PAUL MENSER – IDAHO FALLS POST REGISTER
Trish Oak and Halli Stone left the airwaves more than a year ago, but a shadow they left hanging over their radio station, KID-AM 590, was not dispelled until Monday.

That’s when the Federal Communications Commission announced it was granting KID’S license renewal application, overruling objections that were filed in summer 2005.

Idaho Falls residents Seth and Andrea Grover and Kevin Murray, and then-Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb had filed complaints about comments Oak and Stone made on their afternoon radio talk show.

But the often-controversial duo, which left the air in January 2006 in favor of nationally syndicated talk show host Laura Ingraham, had the protection of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.

“I think that just vindicates the content of our program and our right to express our opinions, which is what the program was all about,” Stone said Monday.

Andrea Grover, a member of the Post Register Readers Advisory Board, told the FCC that the two sisters attacked her after Grover wrote a newspaper piece expressing her distaste for what she considered ostentation at the 2005 inauguration of President Bush.

In his complaint, Seth Grover called their programming “psycho-conservative garbage,” and Murray complained the two went overboard with their views.

Newcomb said he filed his complaint in objection to on-air comments about several people, but that he was particularly upset by comments that he thought impugned the character of state Sen. Bart Davis and showed insensitivity with regard to the 2003 shooting death of Davis’ son Cameron.

In its letter to everyone with objections, the FCC’s Audio Division Media Bureau chief, Peter H. Doyle, said the comments were protected by the First Amendment, the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules.

“The role of the commission in overseein program content is limited,” he wrote. Although it enforces statutory prohibition on the broadcast of o g scene, indecent and profane material, “(The) Commission may not regulate the type of material about which the objectors have complained.”

The FCC renews the licenses of all radio stations in the United States every eight years. Had there been no objections, the renewal would have gone into effect Oct. 1, 2005.

“Anytime there’s a dispute, they do postpone renewal of a license until it’s investigated,” said Neica Kinney, eastern Idaho station manager for Clear Channel Communications, which owns KID-AM 590 and several other radio stations.

Those stations are part of a pending sale to Blue Point Media, an Illinois company that announced in February its intention to buy 22 FM, 13 AM and six translator stations in the Midwest and Mountain West. The $45.7 million sale won’t be final until the FCC has signed off on it.

Informed Monday of the FCC’s decision, Andrea Grover said she has no beef with KID-AM 590 now that Oak and Stone are off the air.

“That was my only concern with the station,”she said.

From The Idaho Falls Post-Register

From the Associated Press

By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ To open or not to open government, that is the question Shakespearean actors may soon help answer.

Idahoans for Openness in Government last month won a $30,000 national grant to enlist the Idaho Shakespeare Festival troupe in a new video on state laws meant to keep the public’s business public.

The group includes journalists, law professors and state officials and was formed in 2004 to educate the media and public officials about Idaho’s open meeting and records laws. The grant came in time for Sunshine Week, a nationwide effort to draw attention to the public’s right to know.

”People who work in government have a lot of questions about open government, open records and the media,” said Betsy Russell, IDOG president and a reporter at the Spokesman-Review newspaper. ”That’s what we need: Everyone to know what the laws are, and to know how to comply with them.”

The open meeting law was enacted in 1974 and lawmakers passed an open records law in 1990.

And in three years, IDOG and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden have partnered on a dozen seminars around the state on open government issues, helping reduce confusion.
Still, questions regularly arise about how the laws should be applied, Russell said, and the new DVD will allow the group’s message to reach more people.

The money for the production comes from the National Freedom of Information Coalition, through the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Idaho Public Television will help produce the videos, to highlight issues now bedeviling local elected officials, the courts and the state Legislature.

For instance, there’s an ongoing Supreme Court battle over an illegal private meeting by the Ada County Commission in 2005. This lent momentum to a proposed law change in the 2007 Legislature.

Meanwhile, in Boise County, in the mountains north of Boise, foes of a large subdivision plan sued the county commission last year, alleging it illegally barred them from a July meeting where the development was approved.

And in September, members of the Teton County Commission in eastern Idaho agreed to fines of $75 _ half the maximum penalty _ after meeting secretly in May.
Though that case was resolved, concerns over openness and local government ethics affected the outcome of the 2006 election, said new Commissioner Larry Young, who ousted one of the incumbents.

”The one violation was maybe just the last straw,” Young told The Associated Press. ”An amalgamation of things can poison the public perception. We’re not talking about national security. This is county government, which should be the people’s business.”

Idaho’s open meetings law obligates Wasden as the attorney general to enforce it for state government. Also, he’s often called in to prosecute cases such as the one in Ada County that so far has cost taxpayers more than $30,000 in legal fees. Commissioners there are fighting paying fines of as much as $150.

But it isn’t just local government that sometimes struggles with the law’s nuances, said Wasden.

He also fields queries from reporters, he said.

”A lot of media folks are coming in from other states, and while they may be familiar with the federal Freedom of Information Act and open records provisions of other states, they don’t know Idaho’s,” Wasden said.

Aides in Wasden’s office say they had received two to three inquiries per week about possible open-meetings or open-records violations before the IDOG seminars began three years ago. Now, it’s down to about one per month, said AG spokesman Bob Cooper.

Wasden will be featured along with the Shakespearean actors in the upcoming DVD.

The open-records group’s leaders say the production will include examples of what the state’s laws permit and forbid, storytelling, commentary _ and where the public can turn for resources should they feel they’ve been wronged by a violation.

”It’s a combination of vigilance and education,” said Elinor Chehey, a board member from the League of Women Voters in Boise. ”People are interested in seeing things happen out in the open.”

From the Associated Press

From the Associated Press

By John Miller
Associated Press
March 9, 2007

BOISE – Idaho State University asked legislative budget writers Thursday for money to match a $5 million donation from an undisclosed foundation to buy part of a warehouse where the Pocatello-based school wants to house health-science classes it now offers elsewhere around Boise.

Some Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee members knew nothing of ISU’s proposal until Wednesday and said they fear too much remains secret. As a result, discussions were postponed until next week.

The plan calls for spending $17.5 million to buy and renovate a third of a 320,000-square-foot warehouse in Meridian, Idaho, from the Meridian School District. The district bought it last year from Jabil Circuit, which shut down in 2002.

Besides the $5 million each from the state and the foundation, ISU would sell bonds to raise the remaining $7.5 million. The money would turn the university’s share of the warehouse into space for programs including nursing, dental hygiene and EMT training.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Kent Kunz, the ISU lobbyist in Boise. “The Meridian School District has made us a gracious offer to go into a partnership with them.”

Proponents said this shouldn’t be mistaken with plans for a southwestern Idaho community college such as one now being pushed by city and business leaders in Boise, Meridian and Nampa. Rather, ISU’s Meridian location would be a site where college students and 11th- and 12th-graders could take advantage of in-demand medical-field training from a four-year university at a single location.

Kunz said the private donation is contingent upon ISU buying the building. He declined to name the donor. “I will let them make their announcement,” he said.

The Idaho state Board of Education held an executive session in late 2006 and again Feb. 22 on the plan, Kunz said.

Public boards can hold closed sessions to discuss buying “an interest in real property,” according to Idaho’s open-meeting law.

When asked if the impending $5 million donation was the subject of the private meetings, Jeff Shinn, the board’s fiscal officer, said: “When a board talks about purchasing real property, they talk about the funding sources that are going to be used to purchase that real property.”

Some JFAC members said ISU’s last-minute proposal, accompanied by a mysterious donor and scant details hammered out in closed meetings, made them skittish, at least in part because they remember the consequences of the University of Idaho’s failed University Place project in 2002.

UI’s $136 million, three-building plan to expand in the state capital on growing Boise State University’s turf left the Moscow school and its foundation millions in debt.

“There’s obviously some secrecy,” said Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise and a JFAC member, of ISU’s proposal. “I first heard about it last night. If it’s such a great idea … why did they wait until the end of the session to introduce it?”

Henbest added: “They said (about University Place) ‘Trust me, it’s a great project.’ It just feels like that, absent any details.”

Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, also said he wanted to hear more about the plan.

“Five million bucks is pretty significant,” Eskridge said.

“We’re all a little jumpy, because of (University Place).”

From the Associated Press

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