Bond election dispute gets trial date

WASHINGTON — Stakeholders and judges met for an informal pretrial meeting Monday afternoon where they ironed out some of the details for an upcoming contest court trial, which may decide the outcome of a $15 million bond issue at the Highland School District.

For one thing, the parties involved now have a tentative date scheduled to hear the case — Jan. 15, 2025 — although it could be delayed as those challenging the election result scramble to hire an attorney.

For another, a third, potentially tiebreaking decision-maker in the trial was revealed. Iowa law doesn’t put election challenges before a conventional judge, but instead sends them to a “contest court” with the power to subpoena witnesses and eventually issue a legally binding decision. There, the case is evaluated by three representatives: one chosen by petitioners (petition filer Ron Greiner,) one with “interests averse to those petitioners,” (Highland school board Vice President Dan Ruth), and a third, neutral party delegated by the jurisdiction’s chief judge.

In this case, that third member is retired Ottumwa-based attorney Richard Gaumer.

Monday also saw stakeholders establish the upcoming trial’s procedures, the order in which each side will present its case, and named a few people likely to take the stand during proceedings, including former County Auditor Dan Widmer, despite his retirement Jan. 1.

“We’re not going to get real formal, but we’re supposed to follow reasonable rules of evidence,” Gaumer said. “Our job is to treat everybody fairly, and listen to the evidence that is presented to us and make a decision … It may be a 2-1 vote, or it may be a 3-0 vote, but we’re going to make a decision.”

Petition claims poll worker error shaped bond vote’s outcome

The challenge to Highland’s bond vote outcome started with a petition that Ron Greiner launched. He said several ballots in the race were handed out to voters at the Ainsworth precinct on Nov. 5 who weren’t school district residents.

That means they potentially influenced the outcome of a public measure setting property taxes, despite having no stake in its outcome.

“I just want to make sure the election has integrity, and the people who live in the Highland School District the right to vote and decide on this bond issue,” Greiner said in a written statement read on his behalf by his son, Jeremy Greiner, at the meeting. “They were handing out wrong ballots for most of the day … for that reason, I believe this vote is invalid.”

While county officials initially said they couldn’t determine the number of incorrect ballots distributed, County Auditor Dan Widmer on Monday confirmed that a total of 96 were handed out. He said the number was discovered after County Auditor-elect Tammy Stewart “did some digging.”

Petitioners argue the election’s result should be nullified, hoping to send the issue back to voters for a special election at a later date. Depending on its timing, that could influence the outcome: school district supporters pitched the $15 million bond as a means of improving facilities without raising the current $2.70 debt service levy set in 2019.

If that levy has time to expire, the bond would then represent an increase in taxes, which could prove harder to sell to voters. In internal emails, school district officials have also worried the measure might fail in a stand-alone special election, with no turnout-boosting presidential race at the top of the ticket.

Still, challengers like Greiner argue it’s the only fair alternative.

“I just want a fair deal. If it passes, it passes,” he said in an interview shortly after submitting the petition. “They thought they could squeeze it by without anybody noticing, and I’m trying to be nice about it, but it needs a new election, because it wasn’t done properly.”

A $15 million bond vote’s approval hangs in the balance. Administrators at Highland planned to use the money for improvements like a new multipurpose facility, secure entrances at the elementary building, new classrooms, and upgrades to the commons area at the high school.

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School district lawyers say challenge missed the filing deadline

Attorneys for the Highland schools showed no signs of disputing several facts of the case.

Asked explicitly during the pretrial, attorneys Elizabeth Grob and Emily Kolbe said they didn’t contest Greiner’s allegation that 96 ballots were improperly distributed at the precinct in Ainsworth, although they noted there wasn’t evidence to confirm or deny that they made a difference in the race where the measure passed by a 22-vote margin. A total of 2,281 votes were cast in the public measure election, according to the county’s official election results.

The school district’s lawyers have filed a motion, however, to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. Attending Monday’s meeting by phone, they said Greiner filed his petition after than the 20-day deadline given in state code.

“The contestants in this matter timely filed a contest petition,” the attorneys wrote in a legal brief to the panel of judges. “However, the contestants failed to timely file a bond. this is a jurisdictional defect in the election contest and the contest therefore fails at the outset.”

That claim depends on one’s interpretation of state law.

Iowa Code Chapter 62 requires that a petition be filed “Within twenty days after the board of supervisors declares a winner from the canvass of an election.” It also requires petitioners to file a bond to help pay for the contest court trial. The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled in a 2007 case involving the Avoca-Hancock-Shelby-Tenant Community School District, that such a bond must be paid within the same 20-day deadline, although that language isn’t as explicit in state code.

In Washington County’s 2024 contest, petitioners attempted to file their challenge in late November, but didn’t formally complete the process until Dec. 6, after learning they needed to put down a $300 bond to help pay for the contest court trial.

Petitioners in the 2007 AHST case faced a similar situation, saying their own county auditor refused to set a bond limit until after the 20-day deadline, an issue the state’s highest court dismissed, saying auditors had no obligation to act or provide any information until after some kind of bond was paid.

“The rule, as interpreted by this court in (previous cases) imposes a mandatory requirement on election contestants to file a bond within twenty days of the certification of the results of the challenged election,” read one part of the state supreme court’s decision on AHST. “The contestants in this case simply did not meet the statutory requirement.”

Also complicating matters, Iowa’s county boards of supervisors hold two rounds of canvassing after each general election. In Washington County, the first was held on Nov. 13, confirming the results of ballots cast there, and the other on Nov. 19, when supervisors went over results tabulated in other counties affecting elections controlled by Washington County, such as the Highland bond vote, which included some parts of Johnson and Louisa counties.

Greiner’s contest was submitted with the bond paid Dec. 6, according to Highland’s lawyers. That’s three days late, assuming the deadline is 20 days after Nov. 13, but three days early, if the countdown started Nov. 19.

The school district’s attorneys argue the results were certified at the first canvas, making the petition invalid. They noted that the same timeline was used in the 2007 AHST case.

“Every county, including the individual controlling county and the not-controlling county … on the (Tuesday or Wednesday) after the election, they all canvassed their results,” said one of Highland’s lawyers. “As far as the contest dates go, the deadline is the date of the individual county canvas, not the controller county canvas.”

The potential dismissal will be decided alongside the substance of both sides’ arguments at the Jan. 15 trial, according to Gaumer. But he said the question of standing would be a prerequisite to that of the election’s validity.

“The question about timeliness of filing and timeliness of the bond and all those circumstances surrounding that will be heard first,” Gaumer said. “We have to make decision one, and then if we find that we don’t have the authority because there wasn’t a timely filing, then that’s the end of our decision-making.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com