OpenCDA

April 4, 2016

Incompetence? Or Intention?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Bill @ 8:37 am

clockat515OpenCdA’s post on Saturday, April 2, 2016, titled Change in CdA Council Meeting Time? pointed out that the online agenda announing the Tuesday Coeur d’Alene City Council meeting contained a serious but easily correctable defect.  The agenda would, if executed as published, result in a violation of the Idaho Open Meetings Law.  The violation was not created by the meeting time change; it was created by the order of business as announced in the agenda.  The violation and lawful correction for the violation was explained in the post.

Today at about 5:59 AM, we went to the Coeur d’Alene City website and once again looked at the online Council meeting agenda.  It had been changed, perhaps in response to our post, but the change did not correct the original error.   Here is the new agenda as it appeared this morning.

The Idaho Open Meetings Law is clear about how public meetings must be announced and conducted.  It is equally clear about when and how Executive Sessions are authorized and what business may and may not be conducted in them.

We believe in this particular case that amending the order of items in the agenda is a substantive amendment to the meeting agenda as explained in I.C. § 74-204(4).   It is not a correction to some typographical error; it is a correction which must be made to bring the meeting into conformity with the Idaho Open Meetings Law.  The Council cannot conduct any business, including offering and passing a motion to go into Executive Session,  until after the public Council meeting has first been convened (Call to Order/Roll Call at 5:15 PM).

Since the necessary correction (changing the position of the first Executive Session to occur after the public meeting convenes) has still not been made and it is now within 48 hours of the meeting scheduled for 5:15 PM on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, we believe that the new order of the agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting would be:

A.  CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL  [at 5:15 PM]

B.  INVOCATION [Unchanged]

C.  PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE [Unchanged]

D.  AMENDMENTS TO AGENDA [Here is where the motion to propose moving the Executive Session item ‘A’ to the next item of business would be offered and presumably passed.  The statutorily-required “good faith reason” for amending the agenda would be to bring the Council business meeting into conformity with the Open Meetings Law.]

E.  EXECUTIVE SESSION [Assuming the agenda amendment motion in ‘D’ passed, the motion to go into Executive Session would be offered here and either passed or rejected by Council.]

F. – M.  [Unchanged]

Both the Council meeting time change and the addition of the first Executive Session are clearly permitted by the Idaho Open Meetings Law provided the procedures in the Law are followed.

This SNAFU was avoidable.  It is very clear from the new agenda posted today that Coeur d’Alene’s Mayor, City Administrator, City Attorney, Council President, and City Clerk are either unacceptably unfamilar with the requirements of the Idaho Open Meetings Law or they are intentionally choosing to ignore the Law.

2 Comments

  1. Bill, this SNAFU, as you refer to it, reminds me of one of my favorite sayings. “LAZINESS ABOUNDS, CHECK EVERYTHING.”

    Comment by Gary Ingram — April 4, 2016 @ 11:01 am

  2. Gary,

    Absolutely right. And since it is very unusual for the City to schedule a second executive session for the same Council meeting, wouldn’t you think that whoever prepared the agenda would take extra special steps to get it right? It’s not as if the Open Meetings Law isn’t clear on how meetings are to be announced and how executive sessions are to be conducted.

    Why is it so hard for the City to understand that agendas aren’t just for looks and show? If they were, then there wouldn’t be provisions for lawfully amending them and penalties provided by law for violations.

    Comment by Bill — April 4, 2016 @ 11:10 am

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