Postville, agency clash over open meetings

POSTVILLE - A lawsuit alleging open meetings law violations by Upper Explorerland Regional Planning Commission pits the city of Postville against an agency that recently moved its headquarters from Postville to Decorah.

But that move, which has understandably rankled Postville residents, has little to do with the lawsuit, according to Postville Mayor Leigh Rekow.

“It is simply to bring to their attention that they are a public, tax-supported institution, subject to open meeting laws, and meetings need to be conducted according to these rules,” Rekow said.

Upper Explorerland Executive Director Aaron Burkes said the lawsuit has everything to do with the relocation of the agency's headquarters.

"There is no doubt” that the lawsuit is a sour grapes response to the move, said Burkes, who called the lawsuit “nonsense” and its claims “baseless.”

The lawsuit alleges more than 50 open-meeting law violations dating back more than 10 years. Most of them involve what the plaintiffs - the city of Postville and Jason Meyer, the publisher of the Postville Herald newspaper and a member of the Postville City Council - describe as inadequate notification of commission meetings.

The most egregious violations, they say, occurred when the commission voted by secret ballot on Sept. 23 to approve Upper Explorerland's entry into a contract to buy property in Decorah for the new headquarters and a decisive Nov. 30 meeting “that members of the public could not attend” because Upper Explorerland staff, employees and invitees “took all available seats.”

The nonjury district court trial is scheduled to start Aug. 10 in Waukon.

Rekow said he finds it incomprehensible that a public commission composed in part of county supervisors and state legislators would think it legal and acceptable to vote by secret ballot on a measure entailing the expenditure of more than half a million dollars.

In an attempt to rectify the Sept. 23 vote, the commission took further illegal action by mailing commission members a written ballot to be signed and returned, Rekow said.

Violations admitted

Both Burkes and the commission's attorney, Thomas Wolle of the Cedar Rapids firm Simmons Perinne Moyer Bergman, acknowledge that the anonymous vote and the subsequent mailed written ballot violated Iowa open meeting laws.

“The commission agreed not to take any action on those votes. The commission agreed to wipe the slate clean and hear the entire issue anew,” Wolle said.

Accordingly, the secret ballot did not harm the plaintiffs, and the commission's subsequent actions to reconsider the issue rendered their claims moot, the defendants said in their reply to the lawsuit.

The commission consulted the state Citizens' Aid/Ombudsman Office, which advised that Iowa law does not allow secret ballots, but which also said the commission's plan to reconsider the issue anew “was sufficient to correct the earlier flaw,” according to Ruth Cooperrider, who recently succeeded Bill Angrick as state ombudsman.

The decisive vote was taken at a special meeting on Nov. 30 in full compliance with open meeting laws, Wolle said.

All seats taken

The plaintiffs assert, however, that the Nov. 30 meeting violated open meetings law, which states that “each meeting shall be held at a place reasonably accessible to the public.”

Many members of the public could not attend, they said, because Upper Explorerland staff, employees and invitees took all available seats and even saved seats “with signs indicating the names of staff members.”

Meyer acknowledges that it could be construed that he is using his position to push a hometown agenda. “But my only interest is seeing that public agencies follow the law,” he said.

Meyer said he is somewhat surprised that Iowa news media - which could be expected to have a strong interest in enforcement of open meeting laws - have not expressed support for the plaintiffs' lawsuit.

Central office moved

After a judge ruled against the plaintiffs' request for an injunction, Upper Explorerland executed its plan to move its central office to Decorah. With the move completed, the agency has 11 employees in Decorah and 22 in Postville, Burkes said.

In their petition, Meyer and the city of Postville have asked the court to fine each individual defendant up to $500 and have them pay court costs and attorney fees, to void the secret ballot vote, and to remove from office defendants Kathy Campbell, Ray Whalen, Leon Griebenow, Andrew Wenthe, Karla Organist, Michael Kennedy, Warren Steffen, Janet McGovern, Dean Darling, Les Askelson and Randy Uhl - members of the UERPC board who voted in favor of the relocation.