(Spirit Lake)– Testimony concluded this (Wed.) afternoon in the trial of four current members of the Spirit Lake school board and one previous member.
Beth Will, Ann Goerss, Scott Wicks, Todd Hummel and Cliff Garvey are accused of violating the Iowa open meetings law for four meetings held in late 2007 and early this year.
Among those testifying today (Wed.) was Garvey, a former board member. More reference was made to a January 9th, 2008 closed meeting initially intended to review a list of candidates for the superintendent’s position. After learning of budget difficulties, the board opted to postpone the search. At just what point that decision was made, and if it was made during the closed session, was again a major point of contention in today’s (Wed.) testimony. Garvey said a representative of a consulting firm that was assisting the district took it upon himself to make some phone calls during the meeting, including one to interim Superintendent Doug Latham to see if he would be willing to continue in that capacity another year. Garvey said the calls were not a result of board action, saying none was taken.
School board Secretary-Business Manager Joyce Peschon also took the stand and was asked by prosecuting attorney Peter Hart as to why the public portion of the January 9th meeting wasn’t recorded. Peschon said the recorder was in the room and she assumed it was turned on and working…only to find out later it wasn’t.
Both Peschon and Latham, who also was on the witness stand today, testified they’ve taken action to prevent such a thing from happening again.
They both said action has also been taken to make sure minutes from public portions of closed meetings are published in a timely manner, responding to testimony yesterday when it was brought out the minutes from the January 9th meeting weren’t published until some 203 days later.
Also testifying today was the school district’s attorney, Lonnie Saunders. He testified that at no point during the January 9th meeting was a list of superintendent candidate’s names released. That resulted in Judge John Duffy asking Saunders if the meeting should have been closed at all. Saunders responded saying he felt they went into closed session for appropriate purposes.
There was also more testimony today (Tues.) about a February 5th meeting at the board room in the Administrative Building that saw a large crowd that flowed into the hallway. Testimony and questions surrounded over whether that meeting was readily accessible to the public, along with another meeting held November 15th in Des Moines while school board members were attending a state convention.
Both the state and defense concluded their cases today without making closing statements. Monday was given as a deadline for lawyers to submit written briefs. Judge Duffy then will begin his deliberations.
There was no indication as to how long it would take for a ruling.
