Judge keeps agreement document closed

A settlement agreement between Kootenai County’s insurer and former Juvenile Education and Training Court coordinator Marina Kalani is a closed document, a district court judge has ruled.

But an affidavit that may disclose the reasons for the $70,000 payout to Kalani should be opened, he ruled.

John Stegner, a 2nd District judge in Latah County, issued his latest ruling Monday in the case of Cowles Publishing Co. vs. the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners. The actual affidavit was not yet part of the public court records Monday, however, because of the normal delay in filing the order.

The lawsuit was filed by Cowles, which owns The Spokesman-Review newspaper, to gain access to hundreds of e-mail exchanges between Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas and Kalani, who lost her job as JET Court coordinator earlier this year.

The collapse of the federally funded juvenile drug court and Kalani’s subsequent settlement with the county raised questions about Kalani’s management of the court’s operations.

The Kootenai County commissioners had reviewed the e-mails between Douglas and Kalani as part of their inquiry into why the juvenile drug court had dissolved. Some e-mails suggested an improper relationship between Kalani and Douglas, who was her supervisor, according to Commissioner Gus Johnson.

Two days after Kalani resigned from her post on March 21, Idaho Counties Risk Management, an insurance program for counties funded by taxpayer dollars, paid Kalani $69,150, according to earlier published reports. According to Monday’s order, however, the settlement names the actual amount as $70,000.

Intervening in the lawsuit on the side of the commissioners are Kalani, Douglas and the insurer.

On July 1, Stegner released his ruling that the 889 e-mails that were withheld by the county are actually open records and not protected by privacy laws.

The e-mails have not been released, however, pending appeal.

Kalani’s attorney, Greg Horne, said he plans to file an appeal in early August.

In a May court hearing to explore the relevancy of the insurance settlement to the e-mail dispute, Stegner established a temporary protective order to prevent release of the settlement agreement to the public.

The insurer intervened in the case following that hearing and provided an affidavit from Lynnette McHenry, an employee of ICRMP, in its request for a permanent injunction preventing the release of the settlement agreement.

The motion for a permanent injunction was opposed by Cowles Publishing. It is McHenry’s affidavit that will be made available to the public.

In his ruling, Stegner states that the settlement agreement is a public document, because it involves the public’s business and the payout of public funds to a former county employee. Still, he ruled, it is exempt from public disclosure. Stegner ruled against Cowles because of language in a statute that explains that once a claim is concluded, “only statistical data and actual amounts paid in settlement shall be deemed a public record …”

Stegner notes that the language runs counter to the spirit of the Idaho public records act.

He went on to write: “Should public records such as this be exempt from disclosure, the public’s ability to monitor actions of agencies like ICRMP and to be aware of how public funds are expended by this agency would be seriously curtailed.”