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Supervisors form committee to review appointment applications after court guidance
Summary
Following a court of appeals opinion, the Osceola County Board of Supervisors voted to use an appointed committee (engineer, auditor, sheriff, local attorney and two supervisors) to review candidate applications rather than doing all interviews in closed session.
The Osceola County Board of Supervisors voted to establish an appointed application-review committee to vet candidates for a county appointment after discussing recent court guidance on closed-session interviews.
Board members referenced the Iowa Court of Appeals ruling in Tighe v. Loffler as a reason to avoid handling the entire review and interview process exclusively in closed session. County staff and supervisors discussed two options: continuing supervisor-only review with closed sessions or creating an appointed committee that would review applications and present recommendations to the full board.
Supervisors debated committee membership, confidentiality concerns, and whether a local private attorney or the county attorney should participate. The board settled on a committee of the county auditor, the county engineer, the sheriff, one local attorney who had expressed willingness to participate, and two supervisors (members of the board). The board moved and approved the committee approach; the clerk recorded ayes and the motion passed. The board also canceled a scheduled afternoon meeting that had been noticed and would not be held now that the committee process will be used.
County staff and supervisors emphasized that the committee approach still must comply with the court’s guidance: if sufficient grounds do not exist to justify a closed session for a particular applicant, that applicant’s evaluation must occur in open session. Several supervisors asked staff to be careful about how the county handles applications from candidates who mark their application as not public or who request that their employer not be contacted.
Supervisors instructed staff to proceed with the appointed-committee process, to notify the public that the afternoon meeting was canceled, and to make arrangements so committee members can review applications in accordance with legal guidance. No specific applicants or personnel decisions were discussed in open session.
