Defeated county leader to incumbents: You violated law. Incumbent: I don’t need your tutoring
This story was updated Wednesday, Aug. 6, to include the Canyon County commissioners saying they had complied with Idaho’s open meetings law.
Canyon County commissioners said they spent “hundreds of hours” working on the county’s new budget, but only five of those hours were during public meetings. A former county commissioner said that violated Idaho’s open meetings law.
Kerri Smith, the former commissioner, accused the commission of violating the law because the commissioners held only three open budget meetings in August as they worked through a draft of their own proposed budget.
“Unfortunately, when you have worked for hundreds of hours on creating this budget, I’m not sure how you will be making a decision on this budget with fair deliberation on the open record about how you came to this decision, including public input,” Smith told the Idaho Statesman by email.
Smith said she tried to bring her concerns to the board on Wednesday, during the final budget hearing, but Commission Chair Brad Holton stopped her testimony and told a sheriff’s deputy to be prepared to escort her out of the meeting. Smith lost her bid for reelection in the 2022 Republican primary to Holton.
The commissioners did not immediately respond to an email to their spokesperson on Thursday, Aug. 31.
After this story published, the commissioners met on Tuesday, Sept. 5 to discuss the alleged violations. Holton read a statement that acknowledged the “public and social media comments,” but said that budget business was conducted in both public meetings and “informal discussions with the chief operating officer during this time period that were not in an open meeting.”
The statement said any informal discussions were later “put on the record at a budget workshop or at the tentative budget meetings.”
Nonetheless, in response to the comments, the commissioners said they would take another vote on the already adopted budget at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7.
Smith says deliberations were in private meetings
During her brief testimony, Smith said the commissioners hosted “very limited public open meetings in the month of August, where they clearly worked on and built out this budget.”
Smith told the Statesman that the commissioners communicated with Greg Rast, the county’s chief operating officer on the budget. “It is clear that the commissioners not only received information from the COO and other staff, but they also gave direction and made decisions off the record,” Smith said.
Holton told Smith that her testimony was not related to the budget and that she shouldn’t talk about state law.
“I do not need to be tutored with law,” he said.
As Smith was heading back to her seat in the audience, Commissioner Zach Brooks said, “We don’t need to get into a back and forth with someone that is paying attention more to the job than when she actually held the position.”
Smith, a Republican who served one two-year term, told the Statesman that she plans to report the violations to the county prosecutor’s office.
Court can void votes taken after closed meetings
Idaho’s open meeting law says that any meeting where elected officials or governing bodies deliberate a decision must be public. But the commissioners held three public meetings, including one for the clerk’s budget presentation and two to present the commissioners’ draft budget, according to county meeting records.
The Attorney General’s Office says that any meeting where the body deliberates, or receives and exchanges “information or opinion relating to a decision” must also be open to the public.
The attorney general also says that “If an action, or any deliberation or decision making that leads to an action, occurs at any meeting that fails to comply with the provisions of the Open Meeting Law, such an action may be declared null and void by a court.”
On Friday, Aug. 4, County Clerk Chris Yamamoto presented his budget proposal. Commissioner Zach Brooks asked questions but no decisions were made or public meetings scheduled. At the end of that meeting, Holton said “the board will take (the budget) under advisement and will work together on it.”
There were no notices of public commission meetings until one for Tuesday, Aug. 15, when the commissioners presented a new draft of the budget. During that meeting, Holton said the commissioners had worked for “literally hundreds of hours” on the budget. At the meeting, the public saw for the first time a budget proposal from Rast.
“All the budgets have been gone through, and this is the culmination of all the individual discussions of the board wrapped into one presentation,” Rast said then. “There are still some topics that the board will continue to work through and make decisions on.”
There were no notices of any additional public commission meetings until one for Wednesday, Aug. 30, when Smith complained about the lack of transparency, and when commissioners decided to adopt the budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.
The $165.9 million budget is up 17% from this year’s. Among other things, the increase will pay for four new Canyon County patrol deputies and a marine deputy.
Typically during the county budget process, the clerk and commissioners will meet on the record with each department and then craft a budget draft. The clerk then presents the draft to commissioners in a public meeting, where the commissioners can provide comments and guidance.
In last year’s budget cycle, the Idaho Statesman reported, the commissioners and elected officials had “more than a week of meetings” that were open to the public before they adopted the budget.
The Statesman asked Thursday what meetings were held between the Aug. 4 and Aug. 15 public meetings and who was involved in them.
This story was originally published September 1, 2023 at 4:00 AM.
