Court Opinion

ID: 9785495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:03:32.518794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:27.161950
License: Public Domain

Justice KIDWELL,
Dissenting as to Part B and Part C.
Local government officials who have been elected have a necessary obligation to be receptive to constituent concerns. I believe that the majority opinion, by imposing judicial burdens on quasi-judicial proceedings, could have a chilling effect on this process. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
“[D]ue process ... is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances” but “is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334, 96 S.Ct. 893, 902, 47 L.Ed.2d 18, 32 (1976) (internal quotations and citations omitted). The U.S. Supreme Court has noted that the “specific dictates of due process” in any given situation require considering “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards” and “the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” Id. at 335, 96 S.Ct. at 893, 47 L.Ed.2d at 33.
In any decision such as this, city council members will unavoidably receive unsolicited communications from their constituents — not only by telephone but even as they walk down the street. Requiring council members to record the name of each opinionated constituent and the substance of each conversation not only is “unduly burdensome,” Gay v. County Comm’rs, 103 Idaho 626, 629, 651 P.2d 560, 563 (Ct.App.1982), but also does little to reduce the risk of erroneously depriving a party of its interest. “[T]he integrity of the process and the fairness of the result” should be our principal concern. Professional Air Traffic Controllers Org. v. Federal Labor Relations Auth. (PATCO), 685 F.2d 547, 565 (D.C.Cir.1982). It should be sufficient for city council members to indicate or state at public hearings that they received unsolicited communications from the public at large, that they acquired no information that was not already in the record, and that they were not biased by the communications. Cf. Neuberger v. City of Portland, 288 Or. 585, 607 P.2d 722, 725 (1980) (stating that “[t]he issue is not whether there were *657any ex parte contacts, but whether the evidence shows that the tribunal or its members were biased.”).
Even if due process was violated because certain council members did not make the necessary disclosures and statements, the proper remedy is not to vacate the decision. Rather, the better rule is to consider whether the lack of proper disclosure “irrevocably tainted” the council’s decisionmaking process so as to make the ultimate decision unfair either to a party or to the public interest. PATCO, 685 F.2d at 564. In making this determination, the Court should look to relevant considerations such as:
[T]he gravity of the ex parte communications; whether the contacts may have influenced the agency’s ultimate decision; whether the party making the improper contacts benefited from the agency’s ultimate decision; whether the contents of the communications were unknown to opposing parties, who therefore had no opportunity to respond; and whether vacation of the agency’s decision and remand for new proceedings would serve a useful purpose.
Id. at 565.
In this case, all the council members who received constituent telephone calls disclosed the existence of the calls at the public hearing. Their statements on the record indicate that they considered the telephone calls cumulative and not of great import. Council member Terterling’s statement seems to indicate that the parties were aware of the existence of a flyer encouraging telephone calls on one side of the issue. Council members Mapp and Baker specifically stated that they received telephone calls from both sides of the issue. Because the telephone calls were of little gravity, did not seem to influence the council’s decision, did not come from parties, and were disclosed at the public hearing, vacating the decision would serve no useful purpose. Therefore, I would not reverse the city council’s decision on the basis of the ex parte contacts.
Justice SCHROEDER concurs.