Mayor Richard Woodland says "Open Meeting Law not violated"

REXBURG - Rexburg City Council has been getting flack over the way they appointed Richard Woodland as mayor.

A formal complaint has been filed with the Attorney General because Maria Nate believes the State's Open Meeting Policy has been violated.

I took this up with the Rexburg mayor, and asked him some direct questions, "Did you know beforehand the council was going to appoint you as mayor?"

"I did not, I was surprised," answered Mayor Richard S. Woodland.

"Didn't the council ask you to take the job beforehand during the application process?" I asked.

"They had asked me. There was a couple of fellows who had asked me, you'd make a good mayor," said Woodland.

"Was the application process just a ruse?"

"No, not at all. It wasn't a ruse. We thought we should go outside and ask for names to be submitted, and we went outside," replied Woodland.

"Did you or any other council member violate a law?" I asked.

"No, we were very careful about that," replied Woodland.

"There was no meeting held?" I implied.

"No meeting held." agreed Woodland.

The Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual section 67-2341 (2) is what Maria Nate believes was violated.

"And how do you feel like they violated that?" I asked Nate.

"According to the Attorney General's Open Meeting Law Manual, I believe efforts were made to avoid meeting as a quorum. And they did this with smaller meetings as less than a quorum, or having to go between contacts," answered Nate.

The City Council made it clear their decision to appoint a current council member was based on the limited time Woodland would spend as Mayor.

"It takes about two years to learn. If we had chosen somebody who wasn't on the council in two years time, they would just be getting to know what's going on," answered Woodland.

Maria Nate was on Donna Benfield's election campaign, and many believe she wouldn't be causing commotion if the council had appointed Benfield as Mayor.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• open
• meeting
• laws
• mayor
• richard
• woodland
• steven
• pope
• rexburg

[heitah]

I don't think anyone really had an issue with the appointed. I think people were concerned about the process. Everything from, "If the Council was going to appoint him in the first place, why do an application process..." to "Why didn't the Council deliberate in public, or give reasons why they appointed," were two areas of concern that I heard.

[TheStoutAdam]

And then you see why we appointed him - he's not in it for himself. He is not going to make everything political. He's just trying to do a good job.

[heitah]

I thought his answers looked good too.

[TheStoutAdam]

Rich looks good in a suit!