Mary Souza’s Newsletter

We’re making progress, people; the cracks are beginning to show.   A major step has been taken toward responsible, open, lawful governance.  Late yesterday afternoon, a judge ruled that the Coeur d’Alene school board used an illegal process when it appointed Wanda Quinn last June.

Remember the brouhaha when newly elected school board trustees Terri Seymour and Tom Hamilton argued that retiring board chairperson, Edie Brooks, should not vote on her own replacement? (The seat’s not vacant if she’s still voting!)  The school board and their taxpayer-paid attorney said it was fine, no problem.  Terri and Tom filed a lawsuit and took the matter to court.

Second District Judge Michael Griffin, out of Lewiston, was given the task of handling this potentially explosive case.  His decision yesterday, which you can read by clicking here: https://opencda.com/?p=10637, is very simple and clear:  The school board did not comply with Idaho law and Ms. Quinn’s appointment is “null and void”.   

For years the CdA school board has used a method some call “Resign and Appoint”, to control the membership on their board. The system goes like this:  If a member needs to leave, they resign several months early, then the board appoints a hand-picked person, so when the next election comes up, the new person has a name recognition advantage and has obviously been anointed as the favored one.  In the past 15 years, the CdA school board has used this method 7 times…all but once. You can see a great graphic timeline of this, made by Dan Gookin last July, by clicking here:  https://opencda.com/?p=9309

This time, I think, the board’s fear and arrogance took them over the line. If Edie didn’t vote, the two newly elected (radical!) members on the 5 member board might split the vote. Edie wanted to make sure her chosen one was appointed, so they charged ahead. It surprises me that Wanda went along with it, since she is an attorney and should have been clear on state law.

What’s also surprising to me is that the news coverage of this event has been seriously tamped down. There is only a small front page article in today’s Press, and the Spokesman didn’t cover it at all, except a smattering of comments on their local gossip blog.  The silent message seems to be, “this is no big deal, it wasn’t really a serious mistake, nothing to look at here…”

But it is worth our notice; it was a major error by the board and could put important district operations at risk. There is legitimate concern that any decisions voted on by Wanda Quinn during the past 8 months will have to be voided, but we will know more as details unfold.

Terri Seymour and Tom Hamilton took a big risk to stand up for what they believed was right and lawful. The court agreed.  This is a big deal, especially since some other court cases have not received such clear decisions and have been misconstrued in the media.  Let me give you two court case updates:

–The lawsuit against NIC regarding their convoluted funding of the Ed Corridor $10 million dollar property was not “thrown out of court”, as CdA City Attorney Mike Gridley said during the city council meeting last Tuesday night.  It was declared “moot”, which means it’s not significant anymore. This was because the college and their Foundation hurried up the “lease” payoff and got it all done, so the court said the lawsuit didn’t need proceed since there was no longer a “lease” to question.

Remember that the Idaho Constitution says that NIC can’t go into debt beyond it’s one year budget unless it either gets a judge to rule the spending is “ordinary and necessary” or unless they take the issue to a VOTE of the people.  They didn’t want to do either, so they made up a ridiculously obvious scam by having their own Foundation (a private fundraising entity which should never have gotten involved in this) take out a bank loan, buy the property, then “lease” it back the the college. That way, NIC could get around the constitution and the voters.

(The bank loan was from Mt. West Bank, where Steve Meyer and Charlie Nipp are on board & are owners of the bank’s parent company. Steve is on the NIC Foundation, his wife, Judy, is on the NIC Board of Trustees and, at the time, Charlie was on LCDC. Mt. West was set to make $440,000 in tax exempt interest on the loan but ended up with a bit less when the loan was paid off early. It sure is cozy here in CdA!)

The case was never heard in court on its merits; the judge never heard arguments about the funding or the substance of the case.  NIC’s attorneys kept throwing technical roadblocks to delay things until the college could gather enough money to pay off the “lease”.  (Remember that NIC put a huge tax increase on us when they took foregone taxes and then rolled those into their bottom line budget so we have to pay the increase year after year after year.)  And so finally, NIC convinced the judge that, since the “lease” was paid off, the issue was “moot”.

But many of their supporters continue to claim,“It was legal.” No, the legality was never established.

–The Election Challenge case of 2009, where Jim Brannon lost to Mike Kennedy by 3 votes, is not done yet.  It is sitting in the Idaho State Supreme Court, waiting to be heard.  There are so many important aspects to this case, it will be interesting to see what happens.

And so the fight for honest, legal, responsible government goes on.  More and more people are getting involved and taking a stand.  WE, the people, are making a difference.  Let’s push through our defeats and celebrate our victories.  Every single person who is working for better government here is a star.  Thank you for your efforts! And cheers to Terri and Tom who, with their courage and resilience, have given us all new hope that the system can improve.

I’ll leave you again with one of my favorite quotes, which is from Margaret Mead, the celebrated anthropologist who studied civilizations and cultures all over the world:   “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”