Ombudsman: Iowa public records board violated open meetings law

The Iowa Public Information Board broke state open meetings law - a law the board is charged with enforcing - when it voted on matters discussed only in closed session, according to an Office of Ombudsman report released Thursday.

The board held closed-door meetings July 20, 2017, and Aug. 25, 2017, before it 'publicly voted to take unspecified or vague actions,” the 25-page report said.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint about the board's Aug. 25, 2017, meeting, at which the board went into closed session to discuss a high-profile legal case about two law enforcement agencies refusing to release information about a 2015 fatal shooting in Burlington by a police officer.

Following that 50-minute closed session, the board voted unanimously to proceed in accordance with what members talked about in the private meeting - without describing for the public what was discussed.

'The decisions the board made on those dates were not easily accessible to the people, as required by law,” the ombudsman's report states. 'It is clear that both votes caused confusion among members of the press and public who attended. Any attempts by IPIB officials to justify their uninformative votes are tone-deaf and fly in the face of transparency.”

The ombudsman tried to get audio recordings of the closed meetings to see if they were private for reasons allowed by law, but the board declined in September 2017, saying members met in private to talk about ongoing litigation and didn't want to waive attorney/client privilege.

The ombudsman's report recommended the board acknowledge the 2017 meetings violated state law and tell the public what was discussed in them.

The majority of the boar, however, rejected the report in Nov. 29 letter to Ombudsman Kristie Hirschman.

'This complaint arises out of a misunderstanding of the law and resulting confusion,” board President Mary Ungs-Sogaard wrote. 'It should have been dismissed with an appropriate explanation to the complainant. Instead a report, petulantly misnamed, is presented with incorrect conclusions and recommendations.”

Rick Morain, a board member and retired editor-publisher of the Jefferson Herald, wrote a separate response disclosing that in the 2017 closed meetings the board asked a member to seek a settlement between the board's prosecutor and those of the law enforcement agencies involved in the contested case.

'Although keeping the attempt at a settlement confidential was thought by the Board to be necessary at the time in order to achieve its success and was therefore done in good faith, in hindsight that appears to be less than desirable when matched up against the requirements of Iowa's Open Meetings Law,” Morain wrote.

Iowa Freedom of Information Council Executive Director Randy Evans said Thursday the board should be the model of transparency.

'We hope the ombudsman's report will help members of the Iowa Public Information Board understand more clearly how they should be operating to carry out their mission, because if this board does not understand that, there is little hope other government entities in our state will live up to the spirit of openness that needs to guide them in their work,” Evans said in a statement.

l Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com