BOCC postpones action on insurance policy

SANDPOINT — A decision to approve a new property insurance plan was delayed by Bonner County commissioners Tuesday until it can be approved by legal counsel.

The new insurance plan would be provided by Farm Bureau, said Commissioner Luke Omodt, and representative Bea Speakman joined the Tuesday morning meeting to provide the board with a presentation on the updated version of the proposed contract. According to the chairman, the board voted Feb. 23 to accept the company’s proposal.

However, Commissioner Asia Williams immediately voiced her concerns with the topic, claiming she as well as the risk manager never received copies of the documents in question, although they were requested multiple times.

“Also, Commissioner Omodt refused to allow us to consult with our broker on this,” she said.

Williams added that she did not deem it acceptable to have the board sit through a presentation and vote on a matter that had not been previously reviewed by the appropriate parties. The county’s broker, Redman and Company Insurance Agency, did not have time to compare Farm Bureau’s policy to its own, the commissioner said.

Not all other commissioners agreed with her, though, as Omodt spoke favorably about the presentation on the agenda.

“Commissioner Williams, I find it unfortunate that you believe that saving the county hundreds of thousands of dollars while improving coverage for the taxpayer could be possibly deemed to be inappropriate,” he said.

Omodt said he found the agendized item to be germane, appropriate and the absolute duty of public servants to safeguard the county. Williams, however, remained steadfast in her disapproval of discussing the policy before it had been viewed by the broker.

“The decision could have an implication that we can’t recover from when we have to renew, in October, our property insurance,” she said.

Despite Williams’s adamant stance that this policy had not been looked over by county staff, Omodt said that Speakman had been working closely with Bonner County Risk Manager Christian Jostlein as well as Redman in the past two weeks to ensure the policy was adequate.

Williams responded that she was not arguing over the fact that a lot of work had been done on the policy, she was voicing her concern with what she believed to be a flagrant hiding of information from a sitting commissioner — since she claimed she never received a copy of the policy.

Commissioner Steve Bradshaw joined the conversation, saying that Williams had been at all the other meetings where the policy was discussed. Her lack of comprehension of the matter, he said, was not Farm Bureau’s problem.

Williams repeated that without proper communication with the broker on the matter, she did not want to hear more on the matter before then.

“We don’t need permission from our broker, our broker needs permission from us,” Bradshaw said.

The District 2 commissioner told Omodt that if they were voting on the policy today, he should be able to get a copy right then and bring it to her for her to look over since she said she had yet to see one.

“I am a sitting board member,” she said. “When I ask for a policy, I should receive the policy. Someone withheld the policy from myself, Risk Management and Redman.”

If the agenda said that she should be looking at and voting on a contract, Williams said she would like to be looking at a contract.

“A letter that says we’re saving a lot of money, that doesn’t tell me coverage, is not a contract,” she said.

Bonner County Deputy Prosecutor Bill Wilson also joined the conversation in an attempt to get some clarity on the matter.

“Does a contract exist?” Wilson asked. “I myself have not seen one. If so, why would it have not been produced for everybody?”

Wilson asked Omodt, who, if anyone, in the county had seen the contract yet. Omodt responded that no one had seen the contract yet after a few changes had been made to it, but the board has had multiple discussions regarding the policy prior to Tuesday’s meeting. The presentation was supposed to clarify the most recent changes.

“I have a very significant problem with the way in which commissioners are trying to address something that could be so catastrophic to Bonner County,” Williams said.

Wilson said that for a typical legal review, his office requests up to two weeks to conduct a thorough review. However, he would never be able to give anything close to a proper legal review if the item was being voted on at the same time it was first being presented. Bradshaw responded to Wilson, saying the board was talking about a standard insurance policy, not rocket science.

Omodt then called a recess so he could call Wilson and discuss the situation further. After roughly 20 minutes, the meeting resumed and Omodt announced the presentation would be delayed until a further date.

While this was the third time Speakman had come before the board, Omodt said she was willing to return for a fourth time because she was so confident in the proposed policy and her company.

“I, too, am that confident in the product and I too, am resolute in doing my job,” he said.