The organizers of the Veishea task force are reconsidering the setup of three “working groups” after two Ames newspapers argued the group meetings should be conducted openly.

Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture and chairwoman of the 2004 Task Force on Assuring Successful Veishea and Other Student/Community Celebrations, said she plans to meet Thursday with members of the three task force “working groups” to weigh options for making the smaller meetings open to the public and press.

“We’ll be discussing tomorrow how to make the working group meetings open to the public,” Woteki said.

She declined to indicate whether a decision about opening the meetings had been made.

Opponents of the task force’s closed-meeting policy say the issue is a matter of legality. The Iowa Code allows for only certain government-related meetings to be closed to the public. Closed meetings must satisfy the exemption requirements of Chapter 21, which allows for privacy in cases relating to subjects such as the evaluation of professional competency, discussion of student disciplinary actions or to plan for the purchase of real estate.

A letter sent Tuesday by Iowa State Daily Editor in Chief Lucas Grundmeier to Woteki expressed the paper’s concern about the task force’s policies, and asked to know the specific exemption from Iowa open meetings laws under which the working groups were covered.

A similar sentiment was expressed in an editorial in Wednesday’s The (Ames) Tribune. The editorial argued no valid reason had been given by task force officials as to why the meetings of the working groups should remain closed.

Grundmeier said his motivations for writing the letter came from the role of the Daily as an advocate for total openness in government proceedings.

“We’re the entity that needs to fight for the openness of meetings,” Grundmeier said. “We feel that all government meetings should be conducted in public.”

Grundmeier added that, although Woteki had not yet announced that the working group meetings would be opened, he felt a reversal of the task force’s policy on the meetings “sounds likely.”

“My sense is that the leaders of the task force want to conduct things out in the open,” he said. “They’re concerned about the practical matters of doing so, but that doesn’t excuse them from having to follow the law.”

Woteki said the intention of the task force was never to exclude the public from the proceedings.

“From the beginning, we felt that the work of the group should be made as open as possible,” Woteki said.

All task force meetings, the background material used to make their conclusions and the minutes of the meetings were all intended to remain open, she said.

However, she said the duty of the working groups wasn’t necessarily a matter of public interest, given that all the groups’ findings would eventually make their way to the floor of the main task force.

“The working groups’ purpose is to identify speakers to come and testify before the main committee,” she said.

Members of the groups themselves indicated that they favored a policy of openness to the public.

“I personally see no problem with the meetings being open,” said Steve Schainker, Ames city manager and member of the task force. “We had our first subcommittee meeting yesterday, and there was nothing that was said there that couldn’t be said in public.”

If the meetings are made public, it could result in some inconvenience for task force organizers. Iowa Code states that notices of public meetings must be given to concerned parties 24 hours in advance, including the time, date and location of the meeting, a measure that some members say would not be feasible.