The Iowa Court of Appeals has ordered the Cedar Rapids City Council to make public its recording of an illegally closed meeting that took place four years ago.
The court’s decision could also impact the manner in which many Iowa school boards, city councils and county boards meet in closed session to evaluate job applicants and the performance of top administrators who express a concern for their reputation.
In 2021, former federal prosecutor Robert Teig sued the City of Cedar Rapids over its refusal to disclose job applications filed by people seeking employment as city clerk and city attorney. The Iowa Supreme Court eventually ruled that only those job applications filed by people “outside of government” could be withheld from public disclosure, while applications filed by then-current employees of the city would have to be disclosed.
Teig had argued the council violated Iowa’s Open Meetings Law in April 2021 when it interviewed, behind closed doors, Alissa Van Sloten for a job as city clerk. Van Sloten was then a longtime city employee who was serving as interim city clerk and had asked for a closed meeting on the grounds that closure was necessary to prevent “needless and irreparable injury” to someone’s reputation.
A district court judge found there was nothing in the discussion that would have harmed Van Sloten’s reputation, but dismissed the lawsuit. Last month, the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed that decision and said the council members had violated the law. Teig then asked the appeals court to reconsider part of that December decision, arguing that damages should have been decided first by the district court.
Last Thursday, the Court of Appeals agreed and modified its previous decision, sending the case back to district court to decide whether the city should pay statutory damages. In its ruling, the court also stated the council would have to make public its tape of the closed session.
“Until the district court ruled otherwise, the recording remained a record of a closed session,” the Court of Appeals stated in its ruling. “But since we reverse the district court’s order in respect to its ruling on the council’s decision to hold the closed session, we remand to the district court to ensure the city council makes the record of the closed meeting public. So the record of the closed session will nonetheless be made available to the public.”
One aspect of the ruling could have broad implications for Iowa city councils, school boards, state panels and county boards. The court said it was “troublesome” that when the council was faced with a request to close a public meeting due to a claim of potential reputational damage, the members made no further inquiries to determine whether a closed session was actually “necessary” to prevent such damage and simply approved the request.
That approach – which is the same approach used by many public bodies throughout the state — allows councils, commissions and boards to close more meetings than the law contemplates, the court said.
“An applicant would simply need to invoke the magic words, ‘fear of needless and irreparable injury’ and could then have the governmental body close the entire interview without further inquiry as to why,” the court stated.
In the Cedar Rapids case, the court pointed out, “the council failed to ask any questions as to why Van Sloten’s request was necessary. Not one.” It went on to say that the “closed session should have been reopened to the public upon the council’s assessment that no needless and irreparable injury would occur to the job applicant during the interview.”
Attorneys for the City of Cedar Rapids could not be reached for comment Monday morning.
Teig said he’s now concerned that the city will continue to use taxpayer dollars to appeal last week’s ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court, funding the litigation with money derived from citizens who are the actual victims in the case.
“The city council members are using taxpayer money for their legal defense, and they should stop,” Teig said. “A good leader will admit when they do something wrong, fix it, and move on. But these public servants already asked the Supreme Court to take over the case once, and they probably will do it again. Would they do that if they didn’t have a public pocket to pick from?”
Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Cedar Rapids closed meeting ruling could affect other Iowa cities