Our OpenCdA post dated April 25, 2014, and titled Deception by Omission?, was based on our assumption that both the Coeur d’Alene Press editorial writers and the Trustees of School District 271 understood the Idaho Open Meeting Law codified at Idaho Code §§ 67-2340 through 67-2347 and summarized conveniently in Q&A format by the Idaho Attorney General in the Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual, November 2011.  We made our assumption based on the content of the Coeur d’Alene Press’s editorial on Friday, April 25, 2014, headlined Open eyes – and meetings.

To OpenCdA, it appeared the Press editorial was a thinly-veiled directive to Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh to dismiss school district patron/watchdog Mary Jo Finney’s allegation that a quorum of three School District 271 Trustees (Hearn, Hazel, Eubanks) violated the Idaho Open Meeting Law when they, along with the District’s Superintendent Matthew Handelman and Communications Director Laura Rumpler, attended the Idaho School Board Association Day on the Hill in Boise on February 24 and 25, 2014.

The Press editorial included this very direct statement:  “The fact that the district legally posted notice of a meeting in Boise that was central to Finney’s complaint weakened her argument, if it didn’t kill it altogether.” [emphasis ours] The editorial suggested that apparent compliance with the “notice” requirement of Idaho Code § 67-2343 automatically made the meeting entirely legal even if there were other factors making it illegal.

Our curiosity piqued, we submitted a public records request to the School District for a copy of the meeting notice and a copy of the written minutes which Idaho Code § 67-2344 requires be kept at such a meeting.  The two-page response we received from Clerk of the Board Lynn Towne was confusing.  (more…)