Agenda sparks First Amendment conversation

SANDPOINT — Items placed on Tuesday’s Bonner County Commission business meeting agenda by Commissioner Asia Williams were removed for the second week in a row.

Williams had three items on Tuesday’s agenda — the county’s sergeant-at-arms optics, review of the language in an ordinance, and a discussion of the definition of electioneering. However, Commissioner Luke Omodt moved to remove the items “as they have all been discussed.”

However, Williams disagreed, saying that Bonner County is subject to following open meeting laws. By removing her items, the board would be violating those laws, she said.

“This board has routinely used the idea of amending the agenda to remove my items inappropriately,” she said.

Williams said that open meeting laws are enforced by the prosecutor’s office and individuals who are deemed to be willingly ignoring these laws can receive penalties of up to $1,500.

She claimed that her items were properly placed on the agenda and there was no reason for them to be removed. Williams also argued that none of her items had been discussed yet, as they were removed last week as well when she put them on the agenda for discussion May 7.

Williams began to explain what her first agenda item — regarding the sergeant at arms — was about, but was cut off by Omodt. The two began talking over each other, as well as receiving shouts from the audience. Omodt began to sound like he would call for a recess until the room calmed down, but stopped before the meeting was paused.

“Are you going to pull out a boom box again?” he asked. “Is that your plan, commissioner?”

Williams told Omodt to let her finish speaking and then he could say what he had to say.

“Do the decorum thing that you just told everybody else we have to do and let me finish why my items are there, why I’m not going to let it go, and if you want to violate open meeting law, I will address it with the prosecutor’s office,” she said.

All she was trying to do, Williams said, was to bring forth the issues that the public has made clear they want addressed by the board, which they are allowed to do.

“The aggressive nature in which the two of you want to shut down simple communication is detrimental to Bonner County,” she said. “Quite frankly, [it] continues with my concern of violation of First Amendment rights of not just me as a sitting commissioner and a resident of Bonner County, but of the people who came because it was agendized to speak about those three topics.”

Omodt attempted to get an opinion from Deputy Prosecutor Bill Wilson on the matter, but Williams cut him off, saying that she was speaking and neither Omodt nor Wilson were going to speak over her. However, Omodt said that was exactly what he was going to do, and called for a recess.

The meeting resumed 10 minutes later to Williams scolding Omodt for continuously trying to silence her when she was trying to deliberate on her own items.

“Commissioner Williams, it is distressing to me that we have a difference in opinion in regards to open meeting law, which is why we have counsel so that counsel can give a perspective from someone who is trained and has this amazing thing called a law license,” Omodt said.

The District 3 commissioner again called on Wilson for comment, but the deputy prosecutor said he didn’t feel right chiming in until Williams had finished her comments.

“I don’t think it’s my place to interrupt a commissioner in the middle of a comment,” he said.

Williams continued, saying it was pointless to have 24- or 48-hour notices for the meeting’s agenda if the commissioners were able to change it during the meeting itself for no apparent reason. Many residents come to hear about one specific item, and if that item isn’t removed until the meeting, she claimed the board is wasting the public’s time in doing so.

Additionally, Williams said the board had already heard from Wilson regarding the issue, who suggested the board leave items on the agenda and “just vote the way you want to vote and allow it to be discussed.”

After the District 2 commissioner finished her comments, Wilson chimed into the conversation, saying that any individual commissioner does have the right to place items on the agenda. In addition, fellow board members cannot preemptively remove those items prior to the meeting.

He agreed that in the past, he has suggested to the commissioners that they leave items on the agenda and allow them to be discussed in the meeting, regardless of how they plan to vote on the issues.

“However, I’ve also said as a matter of law, that the majority does have the right to amend the agenda at the beginning of the meeting to remove items,” Wilson said.

The laws Williams referenced about notices of agenda, he continued, are more about being unable to add items less than 24 or 48 hours in advance, not remove them.

“The reason that is an important distinction is that the Open Meetings Act is intended to make sure that the board does not make decisions without adequate notice to the public,” he said.

By adding things last minute, it would not give the public enough time to be able to attend the meeting or give input on those discussions if allowed. Removing items, however, merely proclaims to residents that the board is choosing to not make a decision at all on those matters, he said.

Williams said that Wilson’s answer was not to her satisfaction.

“The verbage actually in the question is, ‘May an agenda be amended after posting?’” she said. “It doesn’t say adding or subtracting to.”

While Wilson told Williams they obviously had different interpretations of the code, he was going to stick with his understanding of what the law said.

Omodt said he also has a different stance on the issue. In regards to the ordinance review that Williams wanted to discuss, he said it has been brought up in the past and he has even submitted a legal counsel review request with Wilson on the matter. The chairman said he did not think the business meeting would be the right place to further discuss it, but rather a workshop where the public can get a better understanding of the issue.

“If we are to actually honor open meeting law in the agenda as discussed, we need to do it in the manner that is reasonable, prudent and in line with the open meeting law,” Omodt said.

In regards to Williams’s electioneering agenda item, Omodt said the board received written advice by counsel and he intends to stick with that advice.

Williams again said the other two commissioners’ “absolute resistance” of not allowing her items on the agenda to be discussed is unreasonable.

Despite her efforts, the motion to remove her items passed for a second week in a 2-1 vote.