The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

The Naselle/Grays River Valley School District has settled a suit which two men had filed over alleged violations for the state Open Public Meetings Act.

Steve R. Gacke and Stephen Sultemeier filed the suit last May against the district and Directors Hollis Fletcher and Ed Darcher.

The plaintiffs claimed that for meetings February 11 and March 9, 2010, the board didn't give proper notification to the public about the meetings. They also claimed that the announced agendas for the meetings failed to give adequate notice of the business to be conducted.

The meetings occurred during the time Superintendent Rick Pass had announced his resignation but was reconsidering it.

The district and defendants in June offered to settle the suit.

The defendants admitted the district had failed to make the proper meeting notifications, but they countered that the board members and superintendent believed they were doing so by following District Procedure 1400. The policy states that the board may meet without giving notice when it is meeting as "a quasi-judicial body in a matter between named parties . . . or for the purpose of planning or adopting strategy or positions to be taken in collective bargaining, grievance or mediation proceedings, or reviewing such proposals made by a bargaining unit."

"The whole point of the meeting was to assist an employee who needed to talk with the board concerning a confidential issue on a shortened time schedule," defendants said in their response to the plaintiff's suit. "It was not to transact any business outside the presence of the public."

The defendants also pointed out that the board in May had gone through a training on open meetings with a trainer from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. This training was one of the requests to the court for relief.

The district and defendants Fletcher and Darcher agreed to pay the plaintiff's attorney's costs, $13,250, $500 plaintiff's costs, and $400 in damages.

The defendants agreed to the settlement in July, and it was finalized in Pacific County Superior Court on August 27.