This morning’s Coeur d’Alene Press skews paper reported that Kootenai County officials are concerned about the volume of public records requests submitted by Frank Davis of Allied Bail Bonds.  In his article headlined Kootenai County officials seek to hone information delivery to  public, skewswriter David Cole included this line, “Davis, who has a history with the county involving past lawsuits, didn’t return a message left by The Press Thursday seeking comment.”

OpenCdA has filed a fair number of requests for information under the Idaho Public Records Act.  We also agree that requests should be both concise and precise in order to get the most timely response.   But quite often “concise and precise” becomes synonymous with “foundational.”  The information pried out of the locked files of reticent officials often then points toward more information that must be part of yet another request from citizens trying to get a clear and complete picture of official conduct.

And as a result of his persistence and analysis of the information he had to often pry out of Kootenai county officials, Frank Davis has laid a substantial foundation.   Or at least the Idaho Attorney General apparently thought so.

OpenCdA has learned that on November 13, 2014, Idaho Deputy Attorney General/Special Prosecuting Attorney Brenda M. Bauges, on behalf of Paul R. Panther, DAG/Chief, Criminal Law Division, and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden issued a subpoena duces tecum to Kootenai County Clerk Jim Brannon directing him to produce some specific information and documents pursuant to Idaho Code § 31-2002(3). (more…)

Today’s Idaho Statesman is reporting that the Chairman of the Idaho House State Affairs Committee, Representative Thomas F.  Loertscher, ordered a private citizen to stop filming the public meeting of the State Affairs Committee.  At the same time Loertscher allowed a member of “the media” to continue filming.

So was it a public meeting or not?  If it was, and assuming the citizen was not being any more disruptive than the skews media representative allowed to continue, then was Loertscher right or wrong?

Here is what Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says in the Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual (see pages 14-15) about this type of circumstance:

Question No. 18:  May qualifications or restrictions be placed on the public’s attendance at an open meeting?

Answer:   A public agency may adopt reasonable rules and regulations to ensure the orderly conduct of a public meeting and to ensure the orderly behavior on the part of those persons attending the meeting.  In Nevens v. City of Chino, a California appellate court nullified a city council measure, which prohibited the use of any tape recorders at city council proceedings.  While acknowledging that the city council had an absolute right to adopt and enforce rules and regulations necessary to protect its public meetings, the court held that the rule prohibiting tape recorders was too arbitrary, capricious, restrictive and unreasonable.  A similar holding might be reach if a governing body prohibits the use of cameras if their presence is not in fact disruptive of the conduct of the meeting. […]

If the AG has adopted that the sole criterion for the use of cameras is the level of disruption and not the occupation or employer of the camera operator, it seems to OpenCdA that the Idaho Open Meeting Law was violated and the private citizen was wrongly deprived of his ability to non-disruptively use his camera and record for inclusion in his blog.

What are Loertscher’s criteria for differentiating between “media public” and “public public?”  It seems to us that if only the “public public” is required to get prior permission from the Chairman, the implication is that the Chairman may deny that permission to the “public public” while still allowing the “media public” to record.  That would, we think, be arbitrary, capricious, restrictive, and unreasonable and amount to differential and preferential enforcement of the Idaho Open Meeting Act.

What do you think?