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Harrison County Officials who broke the law order to purchase a book

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March 15th, 2014 by Ric Hanson

An Iowa judge hast ordered three Harrison County officials to each purchase a $2 “Open Meetings, Open Records” handbook from the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, in lieu of paying a $100 fine for violating state open-meeting laws. The Daily NonPareil reports Judge James M. Richardson ruled earlier this month, that Supervisors Robert Smith, Walter Ultman and Gaylord Pitt had violated the open-meetings law during a meeting held Nov. 7th, by going into a closed session as trustees of the Ultman Drainage District. The ruling came after the Judge reviewed video footage of two meetings, the other of which was held Nov. 14th. The supervisors were initially fined $100 each, but court documents show those fines were later suspended.
The board had been involved in a lawsuit over a court order to fix the Utman Levee, an aging structure near Modale. In February, the supervisors unanimously voted to repair a 200-foot gap in the levee. According to the paper, the supervisors said the closed sessions were within the law because they were held under a section of Iowa Code that deals with the handling of matters in litigation or where litigation is imminent, and the disclosure of such information would be prejudicial, or put a governmental body at a disadvantage the position of the governmental body during litigation.

The court ruled that the supervisors would not have been prejudiced by the disclosure of the recording from the Nov. 7th meeting, where the board discussed whether to dispute the costs of subpoenas from a previous lawsuit, pay the costs or table the discussion for a further time. Since the court ruled records from the Nov. 7 meeting are public information because the discussions were not within the legal boundaries to enter closed session, the supervisors were ordered to disclose the recording from that meeting.

The court however,  ruled that the supervisors were within the scope of the open-meeting laws when they entered closed session during a meeting held under the same section of the Iowa Code, on Nov. 14th.