Scott County Iowa Vacancy Appointment Committee 2022 Auditor Tompkins Treasurer Knobbe Recorder Vargas
In 2023, Dr Allen Diercks and former Scott County Supervisor Diane Holst enlisted Attorney Mike Meloy's expertise in a lawsuit to force transparency on the part of of our elected public officials with respect to the people's representation. I can't encourage and urge people enough to read the case documents for a great lesson in how government service is supposed to work according to law, but how said service often goes awry. At a minimum, Scott Countians owe these plaintiffs, Diane and Allen and Mike, our admiration for their efforts, our support when needed, and our gratitude that they show up and stand up.
Iowa Capital Dispatch editor Clark Kauffman's reporting succinctly summarizes the February 14 Iowa Supreme Court's ruling on the open records lawsuit brought by Dr. Allen Diercks and former Scott County Supervisor Diane Holst against Scott County Auditor Kerri Tompkins for her refusal to share 13 of the 27 names of respondents for appointment as a Scott County Board of Supervisor due to some applicants' discretionary requests for confidentiality. Plaintiffs Diercks and Holst asked the court to affirm the 13 respondents' names, as respondents for an appointment as a county public official and not a county employee, were public records and to order their release. The documents for Case 23-1729 can be reviewed at the Iowa Supreme Court's Web site (IowaCourts.gov/iowa-courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-opinions/case/23-1729).
In opting to fill the vacant seat by appointment rather than by special election, auditor Tompkins placed an advertisement requesting resumes from interested members of the public to fill the vacated county supervisor's position left by former Scott County Supervisor Tony Knobbe upon winning his bid for Scott County Treasurer. The ad made no mention of confidentiality, so respondents had no expectation of confidentiality upon submission of their resumes. It was only upon her receipt of all 27 résumés that auditor Tompkins asked whether respondents wished confidentiality for their submissions, after which 13 said they did. Tompkins was advised by county's in-house legal counsel that all employees have initial privacy rights relative to employment, thus her offer of confidentiality to respondents.
In February 2025, Diercks and Holst won their lawsuit in appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court in its 4-3 opinion affirming public officials were not employees, therefore their names and submissions were public records with no expectation of confidentiality attached, regardless of whether seeking via appointment what would otherwise be an elected position. Here are the names of all 27 applicants: Gregory Adamson; Jeff Bloemker; Tim Brandenberg; John Carroll; Rich Clewell; Michele Darland; Alexandra Dermody; Dean Ganzer; Patrick Gibbs; Jason Gordon; John Howell; Vincent A. Jurgena; Andrew Kay; Brinson Kinzer; Scott Naumann; Jazmin Newton; Ann O'Donnell; Maxim Pikulskly; Jason Purcell; Rita Rawson; Tyla Sherwin-Cole; Joseph Shoemaker; Ethan Simons; Melinda Smith-Pace; Peter Stopulos; John Valliere; Daniel Westmoreland. Below is a screen shot of the documentation disclosed by Scott County in compliance with the court order.
Previously, District Court Judge Henry Latham ruled in favor of auditor Tompkins, citing initial privacy rights of applicants as future employees. Judge Latham's decision was appealed because public officials are not considered to be employees as a matter of law – the law is precise in its distinction that public officials are not employees of the jurisdiction in which they serve.
In this case, none of the County's employment policies apply to the elected supervisors, or any other elected position within the county. A county-wide payroll protocol is used to physically issue payroll checks and account for the expense of elected positions in financial reporting, but this narrow protocol is exclusive to bookkeeping efficiencies and nothing more, whether applied to supervisors, auditor, treasurer, et al.
To this point, human resources cannot terminate a supervisor, any more than he/she can hire a supervisor because supervisors are strictly elected by county voters. Nor can supervisors be held to any of the county's established policies to which all county employees are subject as mandatory for employment with the county.
In America's Republic, voters are the boss of people elected to serve and theoretically, by proxy, also the boss of the bureaucracy personnel via democratic representation. Bureaucrats have no authority over the elected body. It is the other way around. County public officials are the counties' employers by state statute.
This is a fundamental distinction that must not be lost to individual Americans, and certainly not to individual judges tasked with protecting the Constitution by which this pecking order is resolutely established.
Thankfully, four Justices kept their eyes on the ball, including Justices Susan Christensen, Edward Mansfield, Dana Oxely, and Christopher McDonald. The remaining three Justices David May, Thomas Waterman, and Matthew McDermott, curiously, did not defer to the differences acknowledged in the law relative to elected public officials considered not to be employees of a jurisdiction for the reasons bulleted in Plaintiff’s Dispute of Facts, as well as the numerous differences between employees and elected public officials within Iowa's jurisdictions that are brightly enumerated by Attorney Meloy, on behalf of Plaintiff’s Diercks and Holst, in the Plaintiff’s' final brief.
COME NOW Plaintiffs, Dr. Allen Diercks and Diane Holst, by and through their attorney, Michael J. Meloy, and submits the following statement of undisputed facts in support of their Motion for Summary Judgment. Each of the following 48 paragraphs contained allegations in Plaintiffs’ Petition have been Admitted by Defendants.
¶ 5. County Supervisors are elected biennially by the voters of Scott County to a four-year term of office. See §39.18 of the Iowa Code “Board of Supervisors”.
¶ 6. Scott County has no job description for a person holding the office of County Supervisor.
¶ 8. The Board of Supervisors chooses its own chairperson and the County Auditor serves as clerk to the Board. See §331.211 of the Iowa Code, “Organization of the Board.”
¶ 9. A County Supervisor’s annual salary is determined by a separate and independent county compensation board. See §331.907(1) of the Iowa Code, “Compensation Schedule – Preparation and Adoption.”
¶ 10. A County Supervisor’s annual salary is not determined by the Scott County Human Resources Department.
¶ 11. A County Supervisor cannot be terminated by Scott County.
(App. 110). This statement by the district court falsely presumes a County Supervisor has applied for county employment as an Employee. They did not. The district court never ruled on whether a County Supervisor is an Employer or an Employee of the County, even though that crucial issue was extensively briefed by both parties. Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment, with 2 Exhibits. (App. 035-053). September 8, 2023 Ruling on Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment. (App. 108-112).
County Supervisors act under state statutory authority as Employers for the County. A citizen has the right to run for or apply for public office. A candidate’s name for a public office is a public record. In Press Club, the court further noted that the statute’s legislative history indicated employment applications were among the types of communications the Iowa legislature had in mind when carving out the exception in subsection 18. Id. At 898. The legislative history is bereft of any history making a candidate’s name for public office a secret. Applicants for a public office are not making employment applications.
Applications for Scott County Supervisor are for a public office that jointly supervises Scott County with four other Board members. A County Supervisor is not an employee, but instead is a public official. Our state legislature implemented Chapter 331 of the Iowa Code, “County Home Rule 33 Implementation,” which clearly and repeatedly shows that a county public official is not an employee. See also § 69.14A of the Iowa Code; § 670.1(3) of the Iowa Code; § 22.7(11)(a) of the Iowa Code.
Another distinction is shown by the Iowa Code. Iowa Code §69.14A provides a vacant County Supervisor position may be filled by appointment by a designated committee of county officers. §69.14(A) of the Code contains no language that allows this appointment process to be secret. Electors of the county may also file a petition requiring the vacancy to be filled by special election, up until fourteen days after any appointment by the Committee is made. §69.14A(1) of the Iowa Code.
These clear distinctions between employees and elected positions within the state, counties, and cities are codified in Iowa law in many ways, in various policies and enforcements as noted as part of Plaintiff Diane Holst's Affidavit.
3. The legal distinction between a public officer and an employee is defined in many Iowa Code chapters. For example, Chapter 331, “County Home Rule Implementation”, and §331.324 “Duties and powers relating to county and township officers and employees” makes clear the distinctions between a public officer and an employee.
5. Chapter 20 of the Iowa Code, “Public Employment Relations (Collective Bargaining)”, defines “Public Employee” as any individual employed by a public employer. §20.3(9), “Definition”. “ ‘Public Employer’ means the state of Iowa, its boards, commissions, agencies, departments and political subdivisions including school districts and other special purpose districts”. See §20.3(10) “Definitions”. “Public Employer Rights” explained in §20.7 gives an extensive list of all powers and duties granted to the Employer. A Board of Supervisors is a public employer for the County pursuant to Chapter 20
These differences in public officials versus employees is also affirmed in the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling to reverse Judge Latham's decision.
Federal law and our caselaw have noted the difference between public officials who are elected and regular employees in several contexts. See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. § 630(f) (“The term ‘employee’ means an individual employed by any employer except that the term ‘employee’ shall not include any person elected to public office in any State or political subdivision of any State . . . .”); Hutton v. State, 16 N.W.2d 18, 19 (Iowa 1944) (noting five elements that distinguish a public official from an employee). Unlike the position in Press Club, this is a public office that is regularly filled in a public manner, and it would not be reasonable for Tompkins to believe that people would be deterred from applying because the process is not confidential. See 421 N.W.2d at 896, 899.
