HAYDEN, Idaho — House Bill 172 was initiated in Boise this year out of the State Affairs Committee and passed the House 67-0-3 on February 13 and is expected to pass the Senate after receiving a “Do Pass” recommendation out of committee.
The bill would amend the Open Meetings Law to establish provisions regarding multiple agenda items and it was written to address a strident and divisive vote that occurred in the Hayden City Council in 2024. The dispute amongst the council concerned how it handles the Consent Agenda.
Every city council meeting has items which are grouped into a Consent Agenda, which is a section of a meeting where routine, non-controversial items are placed together and approved with a single vote.
This procedure is used for a quicker decision-making process on items such as payables and meeting minutes. Decisions that require more transparency and discussion are listed separately on the agenda, like contracts and ordinances.
At the heart of controversy in Hayden is whether or not an item could be removed out of the Consent Agenda at the request of one member of the Council.
Throughout the first two years of Councilwoman Sandra White’s tenure, her requests for items to be removed were overruled by a majority vote. Since Hayden Council does not adhere to Robert’s Rules of Order to govern its meetings, like the majority of other cities in Idaho do, White dug into the city’s ordinances to see what law Hayden used for council procedures.
Last year she discovered Ordinance 214, and realized that the City Council was violating its own law, which specified that it only took a minority vote to remove an item from the Consent section and place it into a current or future business section of the agenda.
Ordinance 214, Section 4(C) states:
“On objection by any member of the council to inclusion of any item on the Consent Calendar, that item shall be removed.”
During her tenure, White has been very open about her pursuit to bring more transparency to Hayden’s governmental processes. Once she discovered that Ordinance 214 affirmed the minority request, there was an immediate response from Councilman Ed DePriest, Councilman Matt Roetter, and Mayor Alan Davis to change the law instead of adhere to it. The three men wanted to retire the current code and change it to one that requires a majority vote to remove an item from the Consent Agenda.
Joining White in opposition to the proposed code change, Councilman Thomas Shafer attempted to articulate on objective grounds that requiring a majority vote would make Hayden an outlier compared to nearly every other city in Idaho, as well as make council meetings more tedious and less efficient.
Shafer also made the point that preventing the minority request was against the spirit of our Republic which protects the minority from the “tyranny of the majority.”
The vote to pass the new resolution was a split—with White and Shafer voting NO and Roetter and DePriest voting YES. The mayor then acted as the tie-breaker to pass the new resolution.
Once this step was done, there was a subsequent vote of Council to retire the original Ordinance 214. The vote went the same: 2-2 with the mayor breaking the tie in favor.
The proposed legislation was deliberated in the House committee in February under the sponsorship of Senator Ben Toews (R–Coeur d’Alene) and Rep. Elaine Price (R–Coeur d’Alene).
During the committee hearing, Sen. Toews stated that the legislation was crafted with help from former Senator Jeff Schroeder, an attorney in municipal law who has many Idaho cities as clients.
In public testimony, a representative of the Association of Idaho Cities emphatically supported the bill. Both DePriest and Davis provided public testimony against H172.
During his testimony, DePriest offered his opinion against the legislation, essentially admitting that Hayden had operated outside of the law, which was not a problem until someone complained about the illegal conduct. He also stated that the new resolution was supported by the majority, even though the council was equally split and the “majority vote” was cast by the mayor who holds a political seat outside of the body.
According to Rep. Price, Rep. Barbara Ehardt (R–Idaho Falls) was “ecstatic” about H172, having confronted this same issue in her own public service. Additionally, Price shared that she never would have brought the bill forward if she hadn’t been confident that it would enjoy wide support.
“Ed’s testimony sealed the fate of H172—that it would pass—because he portrayed a ‘wild west’ situation going on in Hayden,” stated Price.
Even Chairman Rep. Brent Crane (R–Nampa) was baffled by DePriest’s comments admitting the city was breaking its own ordinances. When a member of the committee asked why the Hayden Council would adhere to state code when it didn’t even adhere to its own local code, Crane quipped about withholding revenue sharing as an incentive for compliance, which brought a round of laughter to the hearing.
Davis defended the change to Hayden code. He said he supported the idea of a single council member being able to modify the consent calendar, but he raised concerns about “trust and accountability,” noting that these issues needed to be addressed first to prevent one person from having too much control.
Davis’ remarks sound contradictory and appear to be a shot across the bow of White’s efforts to increase transparency.
There is a well-known enmity between certain council members, driven mostly by differences in political ideology. The unorthodox behavior of the Hayden City Council often appears to be more about settling personal scores than that of good governance.
For those who favor a functioning city government with the stability of clearly defined procedures enshrined in statute, H172 promises to bring a little order back to the city chambers.
