No action after lengthy closed sessions

WASHINGTON — The Washington County Board of Supervisors declined to take immediate action after two closed sessions on Tuesday, which totaled over 5 hours.

County Attorney John Gish recommended the board table action based on the sessions, citing the long meeting’s conflict with county officials’ schedules, and a need for more deliberation.

“The board needs additional time to consider the facts,” he said after the meeting. “Also, it is because of timing issues for some of the supervisors … they want to give it their full attention, give the issue its due diligence. To do that, it required more time.”

Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a motion to schedule a special meeting on Thursday, Oct. 20 starting at 9 a.m., where they plan to resume discussion of the content in another closed session before reopening the meeting to take any possible action.

Board Chair Richard Young said the group couldn’t find a time to meet earlier.

“The reason it’s not the 18th is because Stan (Stoops) and I both are going to be gone on the 18th, and we want all five of us here to make that decision,” he said.

While Iowa’s open meeting laws do not uniformly disallow any members of a government from attending a closed session, they do forbid such attendance when it “creates a conflict of interest for the member due to the specific reason announced as justification for holding the closed session.”

Those seen entering and leaving at least one of the closed sessions included County Attorney John Gish, Ambulance Director Jeremy Peck, Auditor Dan Widmer, Human Resources Administrator Amber Armbruster, and at least four people not directly affiliated with Washington County.

While the county is required to take minutes and recordings of closed sessions, those records are not public documents and can only be unsealed by a court investigating whether public information laws were violated.

No more details are available on the meeting than those required by state law, with an official purpose of “evaluat(ing) the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation,” posted on the meeting agenda, a purpose that must be requested by the individual in discussion.

County officials have declined to comment further on the scope of discussions or departments involved, but the closed sessions matched the purposes listed for two others that have been tabled or canceled since the county moved to hire a third-party HR consultant Sept. 7 to investigate an issue Gish said “needed to be addressed immediately.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com