Open meeting laws ensure governmental transparency
Most people don’t exactly get the warm fuzzies when pondering the political landscape over the last couple years.
Working in politics every day gives me a front row seat to the divisiveness that stirs, even our small county. More and more people want to involve themselves in this aggressive heightening of political controversy, but I must beg of you, should you want to get involved educate yourself, and start with the basics, meetings 101, specific to your area of interest.
Politics in our area can be a bit confusing city, county, taxing districts, what the heck? They all have one thing in common however, they all must follow the Idaho Open Meeting Law as dictated by the Office of the Idaho Attorney General. Personally I have always had a healthy respect for the decorum of meetings, trust me there are a great many out there that do not share my admiration of the meeting rules and process. Love it or hate it, these rules are in place for a reason.
Open meeting laws are in place for transparency in government, the introduction of the Open Meeting Law manual from the AG’s office states “The open meeting law codifies a simple, but fundamental Idaho value: The publics’ business ought to be done in public.”
Who has to follow this open meeting law you ask? Public agencies must abide by the Idaho Open Meeting Law. What is a public agency you ask? Governmental entities and subdivisions of all levels of government which includes, but certainly not limited to Bonner County, all the cities within Bonner County, taxing districts including fire, library, water and sewer, hospital, cemetery, school, etc. Now that we have clarified the who, let’s talk about the what.
Meetings are defined in the Idaho Open Meeting Law manual as “the convening of a governing body of a public agency to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision on any matter.” Meetings can be broken down even further into three categories — regular, special and executive sessions. Regular meetings are meetings that occur on a regular basis, for example the Bonner County commissioners hold a regular business meeting every Tuesday at 9 a.m. Special meetings are held for issues that, well are special, maybe the Forest Service or the railroad would like to meet with the commissioners that would warrant a special meeting. Regular and special meetings are both open to the public. Executive sessions are meetings that are held in private to deal with issues that address items like hiring, personnel or litigation. All of these meetings are subject to Idaho Open Meeting Law and the specifics that are unique to each.
Obviously this is an extremely condensed version of this manual, you can find the full version at www.ag.idaho.gov/content/uploads/2018/04/OpenMeeting.pdf
As always, should you have any questions regarding meetings or anything else involving Bonner County feel free to email me at jessi.webster@bonnercountyid.gov or call our office at 208-265-1438. Until next time.
Jessi Webster is the business operations manager and deputy clerk for the Bonner County Board of Commissioners. She can be reached at the Bonner County Administration Building, 1500 HWY 2, Suite 308, Sandpoint; by phone at 208-265-1438 ; or via email at jessi.webster@bonnercountyid.gov.