Did all 3 Canyon County commissioners break Idaho’s open meeting law? What prosecutors say

A prosecuting attorney from another county says all three Canyon County commissioners violated Idaho’s Open Meeting Law by attending a Republican Central Committee meeting and deliberating facts there, without first telling the public that they would meet together.

But a former Idaho attorney general hired by the commissioners to review the incident says the Bonner County prosecutor in Sandpoint relied almost entirely on facts provided by Canyon County Prosecutor Bryan Taylor and did not interview anyone involved. The Bonner County prosecutor missed the fact that the commissioners had asked one of Taylor’s deputies beforehand whether their attendance would violate the law and were told no, former Attorney General David Leroy said.

Commissioners Brad Holton, Zach Brooks and Leslie Van Beek attended the Canyon County Republican Central Committee meeting on Jan. 31. That day, the committee interviewed candidates for the Canyon County clerk job vacated by Chris Yamamoto.

The Canyon County Commission meets in August 2023. From left: Brad Holton of District 2, Zach Brooks of District 3, and Leslie Van Beek of District 1. All are Republicans.

Under state law, the county committee of the political party to which a departing elected county official belongs must nominate three candidates for the county commission to choose from.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall was appointed by an Idaho District Court judge to investigate the alleged violation. That is required by Idaho law to avoid the conflict of interest inherent in a prosecutor investigating commissioners, who control the prosecutor’s budget and to whom the prosecutor provides legal counsel.

In a letter to Taylor, Marshall said Holton and Brooks attended in their roles as members of the Central Committee, and Van Beek, whose husband is on the committee, attended as a private citizen. They did not provide public notice on the commissioner’s online agenda, and it appears that all three deliberated about the clerk candidates during the unnoticed meeting, Marshall wrote.

COMMISSIONERS HOLD NINE-MINUTE MEETING TO ELECT CLERK

After the Central Committee meeting, board members sent a letter to the commissioners ranking the three applicants for the clerk job. They ranked Rick Hogaboam as No. 1 , Steve Almer as No. 2 and Jo Dee Arnold as No. 3. Hogaboam had recently been hired as the county’s director of constituent services.

In a Feb. 2 meeting listed on the county website, the commissioners were scheduled to “consider recommendations of the Canyon County Republican Central Committee on a new clerk appointment.” During the meeting, Van Beek said “the Board of County Commissioners was privileged to attend the Republican Central Committee meeting where candidates presented themselves and there was a five-minute question and answer and presentation of their qualifications for the duty in the office of clerk. We felt like there was one clear recommendation and candidate that was head and shoulders above the rest in that selection process.”

The Feb. 2 meeting was 10 minutes long and during it, all three commissioners voted to appoint Hogaboam. Holton made no comments about why he voted to appoint Hogaboam, and Brooks said he would vote for Hogaboam because of his previous experience in government.

No other deliberations were made in a public meeting, and no candidates were interviewed by the commissioners in an open meeting.

Canyon County commissioners Zach Brooks, Leslie Van Beek and Brad Holton in January 2023.

In his March 29 letter, Marshall wrote, “The board appears to have deliberated on its choice for a county clerk by attending the CCRC Meeting when the matter of selecting a clerk was already before the board.” He said the commissioners violated the law by attending the Republican Central Committee Meeting that was not noticed on the county website, and by using that meeting to “make a decision or deliberate toward a decision.”

Marshall also took issue with Van Beek’s comments that “the board of county commissioners” attended the meeting. He said “Van Beek’s consistent use of the ‘we’ in her narrative could be construed to mean that the board discussed and determined its selection prior to the February 2, 2024, board meeting.” He also said that Holton and Brooks did not correct Van Beek’s narrative.

The penalty for the first violation of Idaho’s open meeting law is $250 and the penaty for any subsequent violation is $2,500. The penalty for a governing body that knowingly violates the open meeting law is $1,500.

However, Marshall also concluded that more than 30 days had passed since the violation, and there was no longer any remedy to fix it.

By phone, Brooks told the Statesman that he and Holton asked Carl Ericson, deputy prosecutor, if he thought Brooks and Holton attending the committee meeting as members would violate the Open Meeting Law.

Brooks said Ericson said he did not have a problem with the two attending the meeting in their capacities as committee members. Brooks denied there was a violation of the law. He said he was short with his comments at the Feb. 2 meeting because he did not want to diminish the other two clerk candidates on the record.

“I did not want my comments in the deliberation period to somehow come across as slighting or impugning the other two names that were there with Rick,” he said. “But in my opinion, just from knowing them, neither one of them were qualified to take his job on.”

Later, during the April 8 commissioner meeting, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Alexis Klempel said the violation did not occur because Brooks and Holton attended, but because they appeared to have deliberated toward a decision outside of a public meeting.

COMMISSIONERS CLASH WITH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

According to comments made in public meetings, the commissioners were not aware of Marshall’s investigation into the alleged violation until Brooks received an anonymous tip. Brooks mentioned the tip in an April 8 public meeting where Taylor was present.

All three commissioners were furious with Taylor. They said he owed them notice before he sent the investigation to Marshall’s office. But Taylor said it is common practice not to inform commissioners when there is an allegation of an open-meeting-law investigation and to simply send the evidence to the special outside prosecutor.

In an email Friday, Taylor told the Statesman that his priority as prosecuting attorney is “to the public.”

“We understand that our job is not to help the board do what it wants, but to tell them the truth as we see it and explain the law as it stands,” Taylor said. “When those things align, the county functions at a high level. When they do not, then the county does not function at the level it should.”

During the April 8 meeting, Klempel said it was Taylor’s duty to consider whether an alleged violation could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before sending it to another prosecutor.

In a criminal case, “you can make that initial determination just by reviewing brief information,” Klempel said. “You’re not always going to chat with a suspect or somebody who’s been accused of a crime before making that determination.” But the commissioners remained upset.

“You took this allegation and you said, ‘Yes, I need to see if they’re guilty or not,’” Holton said. “But you and I are a client and attorney. You would think there would be some kind of notification that we’re under investigation.”

Canyon County Clerk Chris Yamamoto swears-in county commissioner Brad Holton to office on Jan. 9, 2023 at the county administration building in Caldwell.

Jim Jones, another former Idaho attorney general and a former Idaho Supreme Court justice, told the Idaho Statesman by phone that Taylor was following Idaho law.

“That’s the procedure that is set out in the statute,” Jones said. “And I don’t particularly think that the commissioners can complain about it, because that’s what the state law says.”

Jones also said the county prosecutor could give the commissioners a “heads up” that an investigation was forthcoming, but it isn’t required by Idaho Law. Brooks told the Statesman, “I find it unethical that my own attorney who’s supposed to be my counsel did not come talk to me. And that’s who he is. He does not come talk to us. I’ve only seen him seven or eight times in the room.”

Brooks was also concerned that Marshall adopted most of Taylor’s findings as his own, in his March 29 letter.

ATTORNEY DAVID LEROY APPOINTED TO REPRESENT COMMISSIONERS

During the April 8 commissioners meeting, Taylor said the open meeting law violation was closed, since Marshall did not recommend any further remedy.

But in the two days to follow, the commissioners hired Leroy to represent them in a “conflict matter” between them and Taylor’s office. In an April 10 meeting, the commissioners hired Leroy at $350 per hour and his paralegal at $150 an hour to conduct a legal review of the alleged violations.

“We need to dialogue through this on why we’re doing this and what we’re doing, because it has become — and I can say this, but I don’t think you two should say it — it has become a campaign issue,” Holton said during the meeting. He was referring to Van Beek and Brooks, who are running for re-election in contested primaries on May 21.

During the April 10 meeting, Klempel said the prosecutors office did not agree “that it’s appropriate for (the conflict) to be reviewed by outside legal counsel.”

In an April 12 commissioners meeting, Leroy issued an opinion on the conduct between the prosecutor’s office and commissioners. He suggested that Taylor inform the commissioners if a violation is suggested and if he sends it to a special prosecutor.

”When the prosecutor makes a special prosecutor referral . . . he is placed in the situation of having a potential ‘concurrent conflict of interest,’” Leroy’s letter said. “This raises the risk of a material limitation on some of the range of the office’s advice to the (commissioners), and at a minimum invokes the need for the ‘informed consent’ of the (commissioners) about the existing issue and any potential impairment of the ongoing attorney-client relationship.”

Leroy is also Van Beek’s private attorney. He is representing her in an investigation into her use of the county print shop for campaign materials.

Leroy’s firm is one of five law offices that the commissioners have hired for legal services outside of the in-house services provided by the Canyon County prosecutor’s office. The previous board, which included Van Beek, Pam White and Keri Smith, hired just one, according to records obtained by the Statesman.

Since February 24, 2023, the commissioners have paid $40,275 to outside law firms, according to records.