Judge upholds ban on e-mail meetings

Frontiersman.com

ANCHORAGE — A judge has denied the state Board of Game’s motion to overturn his previous ruling saying the board cannot hold meetings via e-mail.

The lawsuit was filed after the board denied a request from the Alaska Wildlife Alliance for an emergency order reinstating buffer zones around Denali National Park that had protected wolves. The board decided after a series of e-mails that there was no emergency and denied the request.

The alliance sued the board. One of its allegations was that the e-mail process violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.

Superior Court Judge John Suddock ruled against the board on Dec. 16, 2014. The board moved for reconsideration and Suddock slapped that motion down on Dec. 31, 2014.

“The court is fully cognizant that the procedure adopted by the board to avoid the strictures of the open meeting law is vastly convenient. Because of the policy decision that emergency petitions are to be granted but rarely, most such petitions are dead on arrival,” Suddock wrote.

In his two-page ruling, he went on to suggest ways the board could hold meetings.

“The board is free to schedule monthly or bi-monthly telephonic meetings to consider any petition filed during those intervals. The meetings can be as abbreviated as the board wishes. But they must be publicly accessible. The open meeting law simply deprives the board of the power to make what are effectively collective decisions by pretending that the sum of individual decisions is something other than official board action requiring transparency.”