The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction against a county official in southwest Iowa found guilty of violating Iowa’s open meetings law. Red Oak radio station K-O-A-K and the newspapers in Red Oak and Villisca have won another round in their battle with Montgomery County Supervisor Dale Carlson. The case dates back to February 2003, when Carlson was one of three county supervisors who met to discuss details of the county’s budget in the morning, and essentially out of public view, rather than in the afternoon when the public had been told the board would meet. Carlson was the lone hold-out after a lower court ruled the supervisors had violated the law and ordered Carlson and another supervisor to pay a fine and the thousands of dollars worth of legal fees the radio station and newspapers had racked up over the course of the case. The Court of Appeals has ruled it finds “little to disagree with in the district court’s ruling” and has ordered Carlson to pay the money.
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