Opinion : Believe them when they tell you who they are

Well, the government does work on Sunday and on holiday weekends.

This past Sunday while looking at the list of stories that I need to finish, I received a much anticipated email.

The lawyer representing the Benton County Supervisors replied to the Iowa Public Information Board and nine of us who had filed complaints with them. As part of our "settlement" a "timeline" of a closed session was to be given to all of us. This timeline was to be a description of what was said in a closed session that went outside the legal description of a closed session.

The lawyer sent us the "timeline."

"October 31, 2023:

Complaints were filed by 9 individuals referencing Auditor Hayley Rippel being excused during the scheduled closed session.

Sue Wilber requested the board go into closed session for her employee evaluation. Supervisor Primmer directed Auditor Rippel to excuse herself from the meeting for the closed session. BoS Rick Primmer publicly moved and Gary Bierschenk seconded to enter closed session pursuant to Iowa Code § 21.5(1)i: "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. Motion carried at 10:05." See 10-31-2023 Minutes.

The Board of supervisors tasked another county employee with complying with Iowa Code § 21.5(5)(a) which states, "[a] governmental body shall keep detailed minutes of all discussion, persons present, and action occurring at a closed session, and shall also audio record all of the closed session." Audio was recorded and minutes were kept pursuant to this section.

The Board motioned to exit the closed session at 11:00am. No further action was taken."

The Iowa State Association of County Auditors explains the Auditor's duties. "As Clerk to the Board of Supervisors, the Auditor may perform a variety of duties depending on the size of the County. The Auditor may accept petitions, register complaints, or act on routine business in the absence of the Board. The Auditor often prepares Board meeting agendas, notifies the media, attends all Board meetings, keeps and records Board meeting minutes, and publishes the proceedings in the official County newspapers."

The Benton County Supervisors did not in an open session, appoint someone to take notes. There was no motion, no vote, there was a sole Supervisor as stated, above who ordered the Auditor to leave the room.

I can only think of one reason. The duly elected Benton County Auditor or her office was part of the discussion in this closed session.

The IPIB had previously declared that. "In listening to the recording of the closed session, the board did exceed the scope of the intended purpose of the closed session and for that, the complaint was accepted."

The mistake is assuming that as a result of their declaration, the recording for the parts of the meeting that was not classified as a legal part of a closed session would be released.

Nope. Nada. No way Jose. Ain't happenin'.

You want to know why? Because they are appointed by the government to protect the citizens from crooked politicians...but they refuse to do their job. In fact, early on in this process, we asked if the board would be fined. Before this was settled, the state changed the law and INCREASED the fines that could be handed out by the IPIB.

HOWEVER, IPIB informed us that they have NEVER fined anyone. Even if they did, the fine would be paid by the county and NOT those violating the law.

So there it is folks. Our County Supervisors can and have broken the law and there's not a single thing you can do about it.

In fact, they can continue to break the law and chances are they will never face any consequences for it.

I suppose it's a bad thing to want to say that in this primary election, vote ONLY for people that are NOT connected to the county in ANY way. Why? They know the ins and outs and how to work the system. It's time the county had a reset. I know it's not fair to paint everyone with the same brush, but sometimes I think a little distance and time is a good thing in politics when voting in candidates.

As seen above.