Opinion : "Something Wrong with That?"

In last week's regular meeting, the Benton County Supervisors seem to forget that the Benton County Auditor is their official records keeper.

A copy of a contract was handed around for the Supervisors, yet the Auditor was not given a copy. Anything presented in an open session is considered a public record according to the Iowa Public Information Board. Because it's a "record" it needs to be "recorded." The person in charge of doing that is...you guessed it the Auditor. Yet she was not given a copy of the record to file.

Also on the agenda was a "possible" closed session, Citing the reason, "To evaluate 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 and that individual requests a closed session."

Before going into the session, Supervisor Rick Primmer dismissed the County Auditor from the meeting requesting the Auditor to show the Human Resources Director how to operate the recording device. Primmer saying that it was "out of the ordinary" to do so.

When the meeting resumed, Primmer was asked who took notes and he said that the HR Director had taken notes on her own evaluation. When asked, "So Sue was taking notes on her OWN evaluation?" Primmer responded, "Something wrong with that?"

Well, when there's a question, I like to dig into legal speak and see what can be found.

According to a ruling made by the Iowa Attorney General, on November 12, 1992, the Iowa Attorney General ruled that "Iowa Code section 331.504(1) imposes a duty on a county auditor to act as clerk and to record the proceedings of the board of supervisors. The Code does not expressly mention that an auditor serve as clerk only at meetings open to the public. It must be inferred from the language in the statute that the legislature intended an auditor to record the proceedings of both closed and open sessions of the board of supervisors."

So yes, apparently the Iowa Attorney General thinks that there was "Something wrong with that."

But the general public already knew that.