Court Opinion

ID: 9856835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:00:37.584146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:00.347092
License: Public Domain

McQUADE, Justice
(dissenting).
I must dissent from the opinion and conclusion of the majority.
I.
Consideration for the lease in the case before us is stated to be the improvements constructed on the Kootenai County fairgrounds. The determination that these improvements are adequate consideration rests on an acceptance of their appraised value of nearly $110,000 as the correct measure of the gain realized from the lease by the county. If these improvements are consideration for this lease, the adequacy of that consideration should be tested not against the $110,000 figure, but against the value of the county’s reversionary interest in the buildings at the end of the thirty-eight month lease.
According to the majority’s opinion, the area of the “fairgrounds” involved in Turf Club activities is not much, if ever, used for county fair purposes. The county will be unable to rent the property to any horse racing enterprise until 1971. The county will not realize the value of the $110,000 worth of improvements to any meaningful extent for income or for public use until after the lease has expired. Functionally, therefore, the county is leasing the fairgrounds property to the Turf Club for only the value of the reversionary interest in the improvements. The majority opinion recognizes that the county does not enjoy a valuable present interest in the structures when it supports the county’s expenditure for insurance by asserting:
“As for the expenditures of county funds for insurance premiums for fire insurance on the buildings leased to the Turf Club, it cannot be convincingly argued that this is an expenditure of county funds for private benefit. The county has a reversionary interest in the rather expensive property covered by the insurance and it is clearly of benefit to the public to insure this interest. The insurance is certainly not of primary benefit to a lessee who has only a short term interest in the property.”
Because this reversionary interest is, in fact, the only consideration for the lease, I would reverse and remand this case to the district court for a finding as to the value of that interest and its adequacy as consideration to support this lease.
*666II.
I am also of the opinion that the majority’s treatment of I.C. § 31-836 is too cursory. Under the brief interpretation of that section given in today’s decision, a board of county commissioners may lease literally any quantity of county property to private persons with virtually no public notice or other safeguard as long as the term of the lease is five years or less and the members of the board are unanimous in approving the amount of the rent charged. This situation is not what is required by law.
Art. I, sec. 2 of the Constitution of the State of Idaho states the basic premise upon which our form of government is founded:
“2. Political power inherent in the people.- — All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform or abolish the same whenever they may deem it necessary; and no special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted that may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the legislature.”
The right to be appraised of what government is doing is a basic right of all Idahoans and all Americans.1 In service of this right and of the basic principle articulated by art. I, sec. 2 of our Constitution, we have several statutes which require that governing bodies hold open meetings and give ample notice of business to be considered and of extraordinary sessions.2 The-purpose of these statutory controls on procedures under which public bodies conduct the public’s business is to insure that government agencies, creatures of the people, may remain subservient to the informed' will of the people.3 Open meetings, at which members of the public who have-been given notice of the business there to-be transacted participate, contribute to decisions which are more well reasoned and based on better information than do meetings of which the public is ignorant.4 All of our open meeting statutes serve these-same governmental purposes and concern the same general subject, the democratic-manner in which local government should be conducted. These statutes should, therefore, be read together as demarcating a great legislative purpose or policy.5 That policy, briefly stated, is that the people have a right to freely attend meetings of local government bodies so as to be appraised of what occurs there.
In service of that legislative policy, the legislature has determined that meetings of county commissioners be public6 and that adjourned and special meetings be preceded by ample notice of the business there to-be conducted.7 The public’s right to attend a meeting is of small value, however, if the-*667public is not given notice of the matters ■with which the meeting will be concerned.8 I believe, therefore, that there is implied by the statutory framework concerning meetings of public agencies a requirement that leases not given to the high bidder at public auction be the subject of a public meeting preceded by ample notice.9 Without such a requirement, these extraordinary transactions will not be subject to •democratic check until after a county is bound by a lease with a term of up to sixty •months. A requirement that such leases be entered into only after a public meeting, ■preceded by ample notice and at which ■commissioners are prepared to explain how the county’s interest will be served by the lease, is, therefore, necessary if the legislative purpose of the open meeting laws and the principle of art. I, sec. 2 are to be given effect. Because the majority opinion fails to see the necessity of such requirement, I must dissent.
III.
I believe that the majority incorrectly states the issue involved in Kootenai County’s failure to take bids as prescribed in I. C. § 31-4002 on the improvements which are consideration for the lease. The issue is not whether such a failure so tainted the transaction as to disqualify the improvements to be considered. The issue is whether we will allow counties to avoid the public bid requirement of I.C. § 31-■4002 by the device of a lease. Stated as a general proposition, will we allow the county to do indirectly that which the legislature has explicitly stated that they may not do directly ?
The economic substance of the transaction in this case is that the county has exchanged a number of buildings for a three year lease. That lease would have had á money value if given in an exchange for cash instead of property. The county has, therefore, bought the new public works constructed by the Turf Club for value equal to the dollar value that the lease would have had in the market place. The county has, in effect, had $110,000 of new public works constructed on public property without complying with the public bid requirements of I.C. § 31-4002. This transaction has either cost or earned the taxpayers of Kootenai County an amount equal to the rental which would have been realized if the property had been leased unimproved with improvements to be built at the lessee’s expense or if the county had built the structures and had then leased the improved property to the Turf Club less the value of the Turf Club’s improvements. It is now impossible to say whether the cost of the lost rental opportunity is equal to the value of the improvements which the county will receive as a result .of this lease. It can be said, however, that the county funds have been denied the safeguard provided by the legislature in I.C. § 31-4002. Because I believe that this evasion of that important safeguard should not be countenanced, I believe that this transaction should be declared void10 and, therefore, I must dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which treats I.C. § 31-4002.

. Tlennings, The People’s Right to Know, 45 A.B.A.J. 687 (1959).

. B. fir., I.O. §§ 31-711, 31-712, 31-713, 59-1024, and 67-5203(1) (2).

. See Sacramento Newspaper Guild v. Sacramento County Board of Sup’rs, 263 Cal.App.2d 41, 69 Cal.Rptr. 480 (1968) ; Board of Education v. State Board of Education, 79 N.M. 332, 443 P.2d 502, 505 (1968).

. See Note, Open Meeting Statutes: The Press Fights For the “Right to Know,” 75 Harv.E.Rev. 1199, 1202 (1962).

. See Glashoff v. Glashoff, 57 Cal.App.2d 108, 134 P.2d 316, 318 (1943) ; Jordt v. California State Board of Education, 35 Cal.App.2d 591, 96 P.2d 809, 810-811 (1940) ; Scofield v. Board of Education, 411 Ill. 11, 103 N.E.2d 640, 643 (1952) ; Kimminau v. Common School Dist. No. 1, 170 Ivan. 124, 223 P.2d 689 (1950); Atchison & Eastern Bridge Co. v. Board of County Comm’rs., 150 Kan. 24, 91 P.2d 34, 38 (1939); Clark v. Murray, 141 Kan. 533, 41 P.2d 1042, 1044 (1935) ; State ex rel. McHale v. Ayers, 111 Mont. 1, 105 P.2d 686, 688 (1940) ; Pennington v. State, 302 P.2d 170, 174 (Okl.Cr.App.1956) ; 2 & 3 J. Sutherland, Statutory Construction §§ 4507, 5202, 5401, 5902 (F. Horack 3rd. ed. 1943).

. I.C. § 31-713.

. I.C. §§ 31-711, 31-712.

. See Comment, Access to Governmental Information in California, 54 Cal.L.Bev. 1650, 1661 (1966).

. See generally 3. Sutherland, supra note 5, at § 5402.

. See Edwards v. City of Renton, 67 Wash.2d 598, 409 P.2d 153, 157 (1965). I need express no opinion at this time concerning what, if any, right the Turf Club should be allowed for its expenditures in constructing the improvements under a void lease; see id., at 157-159.