A response to Decorah Mayor Don Arendt's recent statements

(Last week Decorah Mayor Don Arendt made comments about decorahnews.com.  You can read them at: http://www.decorahnews.com/news-stories/2017/05/16516.html.  His statement was lengthy, but the key sentences are at the end of his statement.  Here are some facts to help you put his comments in perspective):

Mayor Arendt: "Reference was made by Mr. Scott that recently the city council operated in violation of the Open Meeting Law in regards to a committee meeting held to discuss changing responsibilities in the Fire Department."

We wrote a story on January 18th (http://www.decorahnews.com/archived-stories/2017/01/15531.html) about a meeting of the city's Personnel Committee to discuss Fire Department staffing.  Those words are still true today: "Notification of the meeting was not given to decorahnews.com nor to other local news media.  Instead, the meeting notice was posted only on the bulletin board in the entry of Decorah City Hall.  Despite the impact of the proposal on the Decorah Fire Department, fire department officials were not notified of the meeting, either."

Mayor Arendt: "The meeting was properly posted and some public attended the meeting other than council members."

A member of the Fire Department happened to see the only copy of the meeting notice on the bulletin board, which is why several firefighters attended the meeting.  The mayor now is pointing to the failed attempt to keep the Fire Department from knowing about the meeting as proof the meeting notice was properly posted!

Mayor Arendt: "The violation accusation was filed by Mr.Scott and his blog with the Iowa Public Information Board.  The complaint was dismissed by the Board.  There was no retraction or correction on the news blog."

Thanks to the work of City Administrator Chad Bird and Assistant City Attorney John Anderson, the city created a written policy requiring news media receive agendas of upcoming meetings.  We wrote about that in March:  http://www.decorahnews.com/archived-stories/2017/03/15959.html.

The new procedure won unanimous approval by the Decorah City Council in March, as the mayor knows.  Because this written Administrative policy was acceptable to both decorahnews.com and to the City of Decorah, the complaint to the State of Iowa was declared resolved to the satisfaction of both sides.

One unintended result of the settlement, however, has been that there hasn't been a meeting of the city's Personnel Committee ever since.  City council members three weeks ago called for such a meeting to discuss the city's IT department, then one week ago called for such a meeting to discuss the supervision of the Fire Department.  As of Monday morning, no such Personnel Committee meetings have been scheduled.  As my closing comment, I will repeat what I said to the City Council three weeks ago: "I look forward to seeing a copy of a Personnel Committee agenda."