Open eyes - and meetings

In our view, Coeur d'Alene School District patron Mary Jo Finney will lose her battle to show that the school board violated state open meeting laws.

Also in our view, Finney will win a greater war by raising awareness of an issue of extreme importance: The public's right to know what their elected and appointed servants are doing.

While our review of her complaint is informal - the authority for a legal conclusion resides with the county prosecutor - we find it lacking substance. Several of her foundational statements of fact are inaccurate, rendering some of her conclusions inaccurate as well. 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. And although email was exchanged among school board members and verbal discussions about the potentially explosive debate over "add the words" did take place, we did not find evidence that a secret, illegally derived decision took place. In fact, the board ended up with a decision on the issue that Finney would have supported.

But none of this diminishes the importance of understanding, as a community, the intent of Idaho's public record and open meeting laws. And thanks to Finney's complaint, we have a timely forum for discussion.

Whether they're highly paid elected officials, paid appointees or elected volunteers - school board members being the latter - public officials should be thoroughly familiar with the state's open meeting and public record laws. As we've noted before, excellent references provided by Attorney General Lawrence Wasden are available online:

www.ag.idaho.gov/publications/legalManuals/PublicRecordsLaw.pdf

www.ag.idaho.gov/publications/legalManuals/OpenMeeting.pdf

In our experience, public officials do sometimes run afoul of the intent of the law, as well as the letter. In most cases, violations or the appearance of violations occur because the rules aren't known - and, frankly, because the officials and their advisers did not care enough to learn what those rules are. Another guide is simply thinking before dialing the phone or touching a keyboard.

Public officials' communication records are, in most cases, subject to full disclosure. Even email of a personal nature is fair game if it's communicated on government equipment. Public officials would do well to remember that if they think they'd regret seeing their communication published in the local newspaper, it might be best not to make that communication in the first place. There are appropriate means to conduct the public's business; strict adherence to those procedures will serve both the public and the officials well.

Coming later this summer or early fall, Attorney General Wasden and his team will conduct a fun, extremely informative community workshop in Coeur d'Alene on public record and open meeting laws. We'll share details when they're available.