City Government
Eagle Snow Park Faces Meltdown
November 7, 2013 
Nearly a dozen residents of Eagle and the area near the proposed “Winter Terrain Park” off Old Horseshoe Bend Road have filed suit in 4th District Court charging the Eagle City Council with open meeting violations.
The group is represented by lawyer Andrew Schoppe–who was active in the Dynamis trash-to-energy opposition last year.
In his complaint, Schoppe lists four alleged open meeting violations by the Eagle Council which involve meetings to discuss purchase of land currently owned by Ada County and leased to Eagle.
Behind the legal maneuvering is a plan by the City of Eagle to create a “concession” agreement with snowboard promoter Ryan Neptune who seeks to build a half pipe and other winter recreation attractions on the county land. Eagle and the county have settled issues over bike trails in the foothills area near the land fill.
Eagle seems to have forged ahead with their plans despite Ada County’s position that commercial use of the leased park land is in violation of the agreement.
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Comments & Discussion
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Nov 7, 2013, 5:22 pm
Is it possibly “once burned, twice shy?” As the ‘old’ Ada County seemed to have no problem “giving away” public land vis-a-vis a $1 annual lease to Dynamis, a fully private, for-profit venture, maybe they learned through that fiasco (strangely, also involving Open Meeting issues) that they aren’t in a position to decide this. Just because some folks like this particular private venture more than they liked Dynamis doesn’t make it (the process of selling/using public land for private profit) right.
Nov 8, 2013, 3:40 pm
Given the time constraints (the park developer wants to start construction immediately in order to take advantage of this winter’s revenue stream)the Eagle City Council (ECC) wound up “cutting a few legal corners”. Councils and Commissions caught cutting corners while seated in a “quasi-judicial” (without judicial oversight) capacity run the risk of having any decision(s)reached to be declared null and void by law.
Idaho Open Meeting Law (OML) has been on the books for years, but only recently have a number of Boise Valley city councils and county commissioners been made aware of the “transparency” requirements of the law. Serial meetings, unnoticed meetings, failure to list topics on meeting agendas along with a failure to keep and record minutes of, or keep a diary of all meetings and discussions effecting the outcome of a proposal are all OML violations.
Previous violations spawned Dynamis, LID #1101, and now more wasted-already-stretched tax dollars to defend this latest OML complaint.
ECC violated OML so many times that it can no longer be considered mere negligence. The Court has been asked to consider enforcement of the “personal liability” clause of OML and hold ECC members financially accountable for their actions. It may take such sanctions to prevent future OML violations.
Eagle City’s projected “cut” of lift tickets at the park is only a buck per ticket. At this rate it would take years to repay the cost of even a small legal defense cost.
Nov 8, 2013, 3:47 pm
I was curious about the IDAHO OPEN MEETING LAWS and on the first page it covers it clearly; two public entities can negotiate property issues but it has to be in open meetings. It could not be any more clear than that.
Once again, these knuckleheads keep trying to fly crap under the RADAR of public scrutiny behind closed doors in meetings we never get to attend.
I hope they are made examples of in all the media outlets as well as all the pain they can rain down on their collective pocketbooks.
Nov 8, 2013, 9:45 pm
I agree with Flyhead. The Eagle Council President has a big mouth and this is not the first time she has violated open meeting laws. There has been talk about that for the past few months in Eagle. And, as I stated in an earlier post, they forged ahead, making sure they had public opinion on their side to help sway the commissioners. Glad that the candidate they endorsed for council did not get in – he was obviously “part of the gang”.