Any meeting with three or more of the Webster County Supervisors is subject to Iowa’s open meeting law.

In addition to posting a meeting notice at least 24 hours in advance, the law requires that a tentative agenda be provided for any meeting.

Following the letter of the law is relatively simple.

Unfortunately, the spirit of the law, which seeks to ensure that elected bodies conduct business transparently and in full view of their constituents, is easy to subvert.

During an hour-long meeting March 4, Webster County Supervisors Mark Campbell, Keith Dencklau and Merrill Leffler criticized Webster County Attorney Jennifer Benson regarding how her office has performed.

Campbell and Dencklau also questioned how First Assistant Ryan Baldridge had spent his time.

There were no agenda items listed when the notice for the March 4 meeting was posted. A notice posted the day before the session said the supervisors would hold a public meeting with the county attorney.

Benson said she was not told beforehand what the meeting was about.

In the March 4 agenda, Baldridge was not mentioned by name.

But during the meeting, his job performance was brought up.

According to Kathleen Richardson, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, multiple court cases have addressed what counts as a tentative agenda.

“Basically it’s just that the items that are going to be discussed at the meeting, including if there’s plans to have a closed session,” Richardson said. “Certainly just a bare-bones agenda would not be appropriate. Just something, there’s enough detail in there that if somebody is interested in the topic they know what’s going to be discussed.”

By law, an open meeting may be closed under certain circumstances if someone’s professional competency will be discussed. The person being talked about has to ask for that closed session.

The law does not require a board to notify someone that their performance will be discussed.

“There’s nothing in the law that requires a person who will be discussed in open session to be told about it,” Richardson told The Messenger. “On the other hand, it goes back again to the issue … originally raised – is there sufficient detail on the agenda to alert interested people to what is going to be discussed?”

In this case, the answer to that question is “no.”

In an email to Benson after the meeting, Webster County Deputy Auditor Tina Eldal confirmed that there wasn’t an agenda for the meeting, just a posting that the supervisors were going to meet with the attorney.

There also was no official recording made of the meeting.

We question, then, what precisely the supervisors were hoping to accomplish.

If Campbell, Leffler and Dencklau were interested in obtaining answers to specific questions, their cause would have been well-served by a more explicit agenda.

In an interview with The Messenger following the meeting, Campbell said he wasn’t sure if Benson was told beforehand what the meeting was about.

“I know I talked to her and told her we wanted to discuss some concerns that were brought to us, but I don’t know,” Campbell said. “And that’s the challenge, if we want to sit down and have a discussion with any department head, we have to publicize it. We have to notify (the media) to make it fair for everybody. So it’s really a transparent process.”

Is it?

We encourage Campbell – and all local officials – to ensure that the work of government bodies is truly a transparent process by transcending the minimum requirements of the law and providing a highly detailed agenda for all public meetings.

The public deserves no less.