From the Twin Falls Times-News

Idahoans for Openness in Government filed a complaint against the city of Twin Falls Tuesday, claiming city officials have repeatedly violated the state’s open meeting law.

The complaint stems from the city’s use of closed subcommittees. The panels are made up of fewer than four City Council members, plus city staff and citizens. The groups make recommendations on who should fill open city positions and on city finances, for example.

The meetings were “purposely designed to evade the law,” wrote Betsy Russell, president of Idahoans for Openness in Government, in the complaint emailed to Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs.

“The Open Meeting Law applies to a subagency if it has ‘the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public agency regarding any matter.’ These City Council subcommittees clearly fit that definition,” Russell wrote in the complaint.

On Nov. 13, the council voted 4-2 to keep its 14 subcommittees closed after Councilwoman Rebecca Mills Sojka submitted a resolution to open the meetings.

Mayor Greg Lanting said during the meeting that complying with the Open Meeting Law would require the city to hire an additional staff member to take minutes for the 14 subcommittees. City Council members also worried about public discussions of sensitive economic development negotiations.

Russell, however, wrote in the complaint that one member of each subcommittee could be designated to take minutes.

“This would not require the hiring of a city employee,” she said. “Besides, there is no exemption in the law for those who believe compliance would be inconvenient.”

The closed meetings are not posted, and no minutes are kept.

City Attorney Fritz Wonderlich and Lanting told the Times-News that because the subcommittees are formed solely by the mayor, not the City Council, the meetings are not obligated to follow Idaho’s Open Meeting Law.

Lanting promised at the Nov. 13 meeting to not appoint more than two council members to each subcommittee. Any groups discussing contracts, economic development or appointing people to an open position — which are the majority of the groups — will remain closed, but the groups on zoning ordinance changes and infrastructure are now open.

“The council and mayor seem to think that by limiting the number of council members on each subcommittee to two — less than a quorum of the full City Council — it can somehow evade the Open Meeting Law. As you know, this is incorrect,” Russell wrote.

Loebs said he will wait to begin investigating the complaint until Dec. 1.

“I intend to follow up on it,” he said. “I’ll take it seriously.”

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From the Lewiston Tribune

By KERRI SANDAINE of the Tribune | Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Clarkston officials agreed to sit down with other entities for a discussion about emergency dispatch, but they said no to meeting behind closed doors.

At Tuesday night’s Clarkston City Council meeting, Councilor Larry Baumberger said the city public safety committee is “not inclined to enter into executive session discussions with the Asotin County commissioners” about the dispatch contract. And Mayor Kathleen Warren has signed a letter saying the city wants to talk about the issue in an open meeting at 6 p.m. Nov. 21 at city hall.

More than two years ago, the city of Asotin raised concerns about the costs associated with emergency dispatch services in Asotin County. Since then, Clarkston administrators and legal counsel have done extensive research on the issue and found similar concerns, Baumberger said.

In June, the council authorized the mayor and staff to proceed with discussions on the renewal of the existing contract, which expires in 2014. Last month, the Asotin County commissioners requested an executive session to discuss the contract with the city council, but Clarkston doesn’t want any secrecy.

“The public safety committee, after further discussions with staff and legal counsel, feel a private behind-closed-doors discussion is not the best approach,” Baumberger said. “We believe any contract negotiations that will directly affect our neighboring public entities, namely the city of Asotin and Asotin County Fire District No. 1, should be held in the public eye, and they should be represented at the table.”

Emergency calls in Asotin County are handled by Whitcom, a regional dispatch center in Pullman.

Clarkston and Asotin County Fire District No. 1 subcontract with the county for dispatch services, and the city of Asotin does not have a contract. Negotiations came to a standstill after the Asotin city attorney began digging into the contract and raised several red flags about the costs. Clarkston has been paying more than its fair share, said Jane E. Richards, Asotin’s legal counsel.

County officials have said there’s more to emergency communications than Whitcom. Dispatch services include the cost of maintaining radio infrastructure, towers, repeaters, mapping and other items.

No representatives from Asotin County, the fire district or city of Asotin were at Tuesday’s meeting.

From the Lewiston Tribune

From the Twin Falls Times-News

The Twin Falls City Council will not open closed-door work group meetings that provide recommendations on city finances, contracts and key hiring positions.

The council voted 4-2 to keep the work groups — consisting of city staff, council members and citizens — closed to the public and not required to keep minutes during Monday’s meeting.

Instead of opening the sub-committees, Mayor Greg Lanting promised to appoint no more than two council members to future work groups, but he held fast that the majority of panels should be closed, citing that keeping minutes at all the work groups would require hiring another staff member.

Lanting then pledged to remove council members from work groups with three council members on the city’s 14 work groups that had been already formed.

The city had no official list of how many groups are making recommendations on critical decisions to the council and mayor.until the Times-News submitted a public records request for a list in late October.

According to records, Lanting created and appointed 14 sub-committees since April 14.

Councilwoman Rebecca Mills Sojka proposed opening the meetings after attending a Times-News-sponsored forum where Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Betsy Russell, president of Idahoans for Openness in Government and The Spokesman-Review reporter, spoke with public officials, the media and citizens about Idaho Open Meeting Law and Idaho Public Records Law.

“I would prefer we as a body embrace the intent of the Open Meeting Law,” Mills Sojka said. “I think that is a vital conversation.”

The council work groups are legally allowed to be closed to the public since they are appointed by the mayor instead of the entire City Council, but Idaho Open Meeting Law encourages cities to keep them open.

“The requirement that the Open Meeting Law be complied with whenever a quorum of a governing body meets to deliberate or to make a decision should not be evaded (emphasis added) by holding smaller meetings with less than a quorum present or by having a go-between contact each of the governing body members to ascertain his/her sentiment,” writes Attorney General Lawrence Wasden In the Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual.

The work groups are formed to submit recommendations on a variety of city business that range from who should replace empty council, committee or board positions, city finances and multi-million dollar contracts.

“There’s really no reason to have a closed meetings if it’s not an executive session,” Mills Sojka said. “If people being interviewed for a position can’t be interviewed in a group, then I don’t think I want them.”

Two or three council members sit on almost every subcommittee. Any more would form a quorum, thus forcing the city to follow the Idaho Open Meeting Law.

“I will follow the wishes of the council. If I don’t get my way, I won’t go about complaining about it,” Lanting said before the council voted.

Council members Chris Talkington and Mills Sojka were the only ones to vote in favor of the resolution. Councilman Jim Munn was absent from Monday’s meeting.

The rest of the council said they felt opening the groups and requiring minutes be kept was too extreme.

“I think we’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Councilman Don Hall said. “I believe we have been following the law in good faith.”

Councilman Shawn Barigar said keeping the work groups closed helped keep city government efficient.

“In my mind, it’s easier to follow the letter of the law than the spirit of the law, because the spirit gets moved around a lot,” Barigar said.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From the Idaho Statesman

By AUDREY DUTTON – adutton@idahostatesman.com

BOISE • Idaho news media groups, including the Idaho Statesman, the Associated Press, the Idaho Press Club, the Times-News and the Idaho Press-Tribune, have asked that all witness testimony and exhibits in the St. Luke’s antitrust trial be made public.

The request, filed Tuesday, said U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill failed to require lawyers to make compelling arguments for keeping courtroom testimony closed and evidence sealed.

“The public’s right to know in the case at bar is absolutely compelling, critical and important,” the request said.

St. Luke’s Health System is accused of building a monopoly on health care in the Nampa area by buying a Nampa physician practice, Saltzer Medical Group, and employing its doctors — a deal St. Luke’s opponents say harmed competition for primary health care.

The lawsuit was filed last year by St. Luke’s competitor Saint Alphonsus Health System and a small Boise surgical center, Treasure Valley Hospital. The Federal Trade Commission and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden joined the lawsuit after a lengthy investigation.

The trial started Sept. 23 and ended Nov. 7. More than half of the first seven days of testimony occurred behind closed doors, according to the news groups. Doors were open more frequently in the latter half of the month-long trial. During some open-door proceedings, the public was allowed to stay in the room, but only the judge and contractor lawyers could see certain exhibits and hear certain testimony.

Before the trial, Winmill allowed certain pieces of evidence and testimony to be designated for “attorneys’ eyes only” to protect trade secrets.

In early October, while the trial was underway, the news organizations — including the Associated Press, the Idaho Press Club, the Times-News and the Idaho Press-Tribune in Nampa — asked Winmill to open that testimony and evidence. Charles Brown, Lewiston lawyer for the group, argued that Winmill had not required lawyers to furnish a “compelling reason” why trade secrets should trump the public’s right to know.

All parties involved in the trial opposed the news groups’ motion. Idaho health insurers, the independent Primary Health Medical Group and local employer Micron Technology argued they had divulged secrets and offered data under the expectation that the materials would be kept secret. Releasing the secrets would damage the companies’ competitive standing, they said.

Winmill then ruled that all sealed depositions, closed-door testimony and confidential documents must be accompanied by “compelling reason” explanations and references to the types of trade secrets they contain. Among other things, Winmill allowed “trade secrets” to include documents and testimony that could reveal how a health insurance company, hospital or physician practice makes and negotiates contracts, how much a company pays and its future plans.

In the appeal, Brown wrote that Winmill fell short in his enforcement of that rule.

The arguments “routinely just set forth the entity’s desires and opinions as to what it wants to be removed from public view, but none of them reveal to this court nor the lower court ‘compelling reasons’ to do so,” he wrote, adding that more than 575 exhibits were sealed.

He also argued that consumers and patients should be given a clearer window into the health care industry.

“The District Court, the litigants, and the well-represented nonlitigants are simply hoping that by filing generalized, alarmist affidavits after the fact that the Ninth Circuit Court will blink and sidestep the declarative and clear standards this court has set forth for many years,” Brown wrote.

Editor’s note: Audrey Dutton, who covered the trial, provided information to Brown for the preparation of the news groups’ legal motions.

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Associated Press

By JOHN MILLER, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Board members of the Idaho health insurance exchange said Tuesday that they will keep secret the findings of a $15,000 taxpayer-funded investigation into how one of its own members won a lucrative no-bid contract.

Your Health Idaho board chairman Stephen Weeg said the two-week-long review by a private lawyer uncovered “lapses in judgment,” though nothing illegal. Exchange executive director Amy Dowd last month awarded a technology contract worth up to $375,000 to board member Frank Chan, who quit the same day the contract was announced.

Dowd gave Chan the contract without advertising it or allowing others to compete. It was later canceled after House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, joined critics who called Dowd’s deal with an exchange insider “indefensible.”

Boise lawyer Frederick Mack was hired to scrutinize the deal. He presented his report Tuesday during a three-hour, closed-door exchange board meeting at the Idaho Capitol.

“The key finding was: We violated no law, that lapses of judgment were made around the procurement policy and conflict-of-interest policy,” Weeg said following the meeting. “He had recommendations for us to move forward as an organization.”

Dowd said Tuesday that she thinks the recommendations will help staff and board members make good decisions in the future.

“I’m very much looking forward to focusing all of our attention now on moving ahead,” she said.

But Weeg said the public will never be able to see Mack’s recommendations or findings.

“It deals with personnel, and it’s done under attorney-client privilege,” said Weeg, a retired Pocatello health care industry executive who heads up the volunteer board. He declined to detail the judgment lapses Mack found or who committed them.

“The key is, how do we move forward, rather than how do we point fingers,” he said. “Sure, we stumbled. But we want to minimize the number of stumbles.”

Dowd maintains that she vetted Chan’s hiring with Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s staff before making the move.

While Otter’s staff knew Chan was quitting the board to take the contract, the governor’s aides say they never approved Dowd’s decision to award him the work.

“Our role was not to approve or deny her requests,” said Jon Hanian, Otter’s spokesman, responding to questions about the administration’s role. “Our understanding was that any potential contract would be reviewed by the board, which has that authority.”

Idaho’s online exchange is part of President Barack Obama’s program to provide federally subsidized health insurance to more Americans.

Like exchanges across the country, Idaho’s version has struggled to enroll participants, in part because of glitches in the federal software system seen since its launch on Oct. 1.

The $180-per-hour deal Dowd struck with Chan on Oct. 16 was to oversee Idaho’s effort to replace the federal software with a program of its own. The deal came without board approval.

The 18-member panel has since curtailed Dowd’s powers to award contracts without its approval. The board also updated rules preventing members from capitalizing on their ties to win exchange-related work.

Despite these distractions, Dowd said Tuesday that she doesn’t believe there’s been a delay in the goal of having Idaho’s in-house enrollment system completed by next October.

To complete that project, Idaho aims to use a pending $50 million federal grant, on top of a $20 million grant the exchange has already received.

Also Tuesday, exchange board members created a new “personnel committee” that, among other things, plans to address questions like appropriate compensation. That will subject Dowd, who earns $175,000 annually for her role heading the exchange, to additional scrutiny.

Much of the new committee’s work, like Mack’s investigation, will be also kept from public view, Weeg said, given the board’s need to protect employee confidentiality.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

From the Associated Press

From the Associated Press/Idaho Statesman

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge presiding over an antitrust lawsuit between two major Idaho health care providers has declared that trial testimony and documents can remain hidden from public view, providing attorneys make a compelling case for secrecy.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled Tuesday after a coalition of Idaho news organizations challenged a broad protective order approved by the judge for documents and testimony leading up to the trial.

The lawsuit, now in its third week, focuses on allegations brought by the Idaho Attorney General, the Federal Trade Commission and Saint Alphonsus Health System against St. Luke’s Health System. The case emerged in the wake of St. Luke’s bid to buy Nampa-based Saltzer Medical Group.

The week before the trial began, Winmill gave attorneys in the case latitude to designate documents and witness statements for “attorneys’ eyes only,” in effect sealing them off to the public and media covering the case. Winmill acknowledged the public’s right to know in an open trial, but balanced that with giving the hospitals the ability to protect trade secrets. As a result, more than half of the first two weeks of the trial took place behind closed doors.

The news organizations disagreed and filed a motion to intervene, arguing everything presented in the trial should be accessible to the public. The coalition includes The Idaho Statesman, The Associated Press, Times-News, Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Idaho Press-Tribune and the Idaho Press Club.

Winmill didn’t entirely agree with arguments offered Tuesday by media attorney Charles Brown of Lewiston.

“This is a (trial) of great interest to the public,” Winmill said. “The problem in this case is also very unique.

“We can’t, I think, (protect trade secrets) with a broad axe. We can’t do it with a scalpel.”

However, Winmill ordered lawyers for the hospitals, FTC and attorney general to file affidavits over the next week explaining why each sealed document and witness statement merits being sealed.

Winmill also said he will review the documents and testimony to make sure businesses are not misusing their “trade secret” status.

He also offered Brown the ability to review the documents as long as he does not disclose their contents to the news organizations. But Brown said the judge has the responsibility to be the “gatekeeper” of the public’s right to know.

St. Luke’s is accused by two competitors — Saint Alphonsus Health System and Treasure Valley Hospital — the state and federal government of breaking antitrust laws in its buyout of the Saltzer group. The trial is expected to end in mid-October, with a ruling sometime after Nov. 7.

From the Associated Press/Idaho Statesman

The public is invited to attend any of four upcoming free seminars on Idaho’s key open government laws – the Idaho Open Meeting Law and the Idaho Public Records Law – Oct. 14-17 in the Wood River Valley, the Magic Valley and eastern Idaho, led by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.

It’s a chance to learn what is covered – and what is not – by these important laws, in a fun and accessible format. Presenters in addition to Wasden will include Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane and IDOG President Betsy Russell. Government agency employees, reporters from all media, and interested citizens all are invited.

The seminars all will start at 6 p.m. These sessions are recommended by the Office of the Attorney General, the Association of Idaho Cities, the Idaho Association of Counties and the Idaho Press Club. The sessions are free and include refreshments; because space is limited, attendees are asked to RSVP.

Here are the four specific locations and RSVP information:

•MON. Oct. 14, HAILEY – Co-sponsored by the Idaho Mountain Express
Old County Courthouse, 201 2nd Ave S., Hailey ~ 6 pm
RSVP to Allison Kindred, akindred@mtexpress.com or (208) 726-8060, ext. 117

•TUES. Oct. 15 – TWIN FALLS – Co-sponsored by the Times-News
Twin Falls Center for the Arts Auditorium, 195 River Vista Place ~ 6 pm
RSVP to Autumn Agar, aagar@magicvalley.com or (208) 735-3255

•WED. Oct. 16 – FORT HALL – Co-sponsored by the Blackfoot Morning News, the Idaho State Journal, and the Post Register
Sho-Ban Hotel & Event Center, I-15 Exit 80, Fort Hall ~ 6 pm
RSVP to Leonard Martin, (208) 785-1100 or publisher@cableone.net

•THURS. Oct. 17 – REXBURG – Co-sponsored by Standard Journal & Post Register
Conference room at the Development Center, 343 East 4th North, 2nd floor ~ 6 pm
RSVP to Matt Eichner, editor@uvsj.com, or (208) 356-5441

IDOG and Attorney General Wasden have been holding these sessions around the state since 2004; most recently, seminars were held last winter in Boise, Payette and Nampa. The Hailey seminar will be the 27th since they began; they are funded in part by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation through the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

IDOG is a non-profit coalition for open government whose mission is to promote open government and freedom of information.

From the Associated Press

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A coalition of news organizations has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit between two major health care providers in Idaho in an effort to open court proceedings to the public and the press.

The Idaho Statesman, The Times-News in Twin Falls, The Associated Press, the Idaho Press-Tribune and the Idaho Press Club filed the motion to intervene on Tuesday, asking U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill to reverse a pretrial order he issued allowing the closure of the courtroom for some testimony and to keep the proceedings open to the public.

The case pits the Idaho attorney general’s office, the Federal Trade Commission and Saint Alphonsus Health System against St. Luke’s Health System and its quest to purchase the Nampa-based Saltzer Medical Group.

St. Luke’s says growth and consolidation will result in better health care at lower cost, but Saint Alphonsus, Treasure Valley Hospital and state and FTC attorneys want to stop the acquisition because they say it gives St. Luke’s an unfair share of the market and lead to higher prices for consumers.

The trial began last week, and much of the testimony and proceedings have been closed to the public, purportedly to protect the trade secrets of the parties involved.

The attorney for the news organizations, Charles Brown, said in court documents that the public has a right to know what is going on behind closed courtroom doors in part because Idaho residents will be impacted by the outcome of the case.

“Drawing a curtain of secrecy behind which the parties in this matter can operate simply does not comport with the requirements of the First Amendment nor Ninth Circuit case law as to the openness required of our judicial system but also the openness required of our government,” Brown wrote.

In a ruling issued before the trial began, the judge said that the press and public have a “presumptive right of access,” but that right may give way if the parties involved make a convincing showing that the testimony or document contains sources of business information that could harm a litigant’s competitive standing.

But Brown and the news organizations contend that the attorneys have been allowed to decide on their own whether they have a compelling reason to keep parts of the testimony and evidence secret.

“The parties in this lawsuit are using the umbrella of sensitive trade secrets, negotiating strategies, bargaining power evaluations, reimbursement policies, pricing and future plans to avoid revealing what they don’t want to be revealed. Where does the interest of the medical consumer enter into this equation?” Brown asked the judge in his filing.

Brown noted that the judge appeared to rely on case law created in the criminal case against former President Richard Nixon’s advisers after the Watergate scandal. But the facts of that case, Brown argues, were significantly different than the issues in the current litigation, and even then, the press and public had greater access.

“The doors of the courtroom were not closed to the public nor the press even when the President’s former advisers were charged with criminal conspiracy,” Brown wrote in his motion. “The Nixon case only involved access to the tapes and the scope and breadth of that access after they were admitted into evidence.”

The public has a right to know the details of the case, especially given that the plaintiffs say St. Luke’s actions would increase health care costs and reduce health care quality in Idaho, Brown maintained

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

From the Associated Press