Lyman Dillon resides in the dusty recesses of Iowa history for his role in 1839 in one of Iowa’s earliest infrastructure projects.

Dillon’s work also figures indirectly in a modern-day lesson on how NOT to run a government.

This how-not-to-do-it tutorial occurred last week during a Jones County Board of Supervisors meeting. A similar lesson is playing out in Storm Lake to a growing audience of discontented residents there.

At the heart of this lesson is the simple command the Legislature adopted 50 years ago — that public business should take place in the open for all to see, not in secret. Lawmakers and the courts recognize that voters and taxpayers cannot understand and evaluate the basis and rationale for government decisions when elected leaders make them behind closed doors or based on undisclosed information.

But some officials trip over themselves to avoid the heat of the spotlight when considering controversial topics. It is not necessarily a desire to avoid controversies. Instead, some prefer to discuss and decide what to do in private for convenience or to avoid embarrassment.

How does Lyman Dillon, an obscure pioneer, figure into this issue of openness vs. secrecy? Let’s begin with a quick history lesson.

In 1839, the federal government hired the 39-year-old farmer from Cascade to construct the first road in the Iowa Territory. I use the term “construct” loosely. Dillon was paid $3 per mile to use his teams of oxen to plow a 90-mile-long path that would guide travelers between Dubuque and Iowa City.

The path was officially known as the Military Road. Unofficially, people called it Dillon’s Furrow. Today, his path carries mundane names, U.S. Highway 151 between Dubuque and Anamosa and Iowa Highway 1 from just west of Anamosa to Iowa City.

In 1887, the government built an iron bridge over the Wapsipinicon River at Anamosa to further aid travelers using Dillon’s Furrow. That bridge still stands, although it no longer carries travelers.

Some people in eastern Iowa, including the Anamosa City Council and 1,200 petition signers, want to preserve what is now called the Dillon Military Bridge as a historic centerpiece for a recreational hiking and biking trail. But members of the Jones County Board of Supervisors see the bridge as a big expense for taxpayers and want to cut it up for scrap.

I do not have a position on the keep-or-scrap question. But I do have an opinion on the process the county supervisors followed last week.

The board disregarded the spirit and letter of Iowa’s public meetings Iowa when it met behind closed doors to discuss the bridge question and the county’s Anamosa bridge agreement. When the public meeting resumed, the supervisors came down in favor of demolition and voted to dissolve their agreement with Anamosa.

They did this without allowing preservationists to observe or comment during the supervisors’ deliberations last week. In contrast, when the bridge issue came before the Anamosa City Council in June, about 70 people attended and spoke at length.

County Attorney Kristofer Lyons said the supervisors needed to close their meeting because the bridge issue could end up in a lawsuit. Following his logic, government boards in Iowa could debate nearly every controversial issue in secret because there always is a chance someone might sue.

The litigation exemption to the public meetings law allows government boards and their lawyers to discuss legal strategy in a pending lawsuit or in a dispute that is headed to the courts. Neither applies at this point to the Dillon Military Bridge dispute.

As in Jones County, people in Storm Lake are frustrated by the lack of information about the financial health of King’s Pointe Resort, a hotel, resort and water park on the shore of Storm Lake. The city owns the property and contracts with an outside management company to run it.

Questions about the profitability of King’s Pointe arose when the latest city audit was made public. It reported the resort’s cash on hand has fallen by half in recent years. Expenses exceeded revenues in 2024, 2023, 2021 and 2020, the Storm Lake Times Pilot reported.

To answer the public’s questions about the resort finances, the newspaper asked for copies of the monthly profit and loss statements the management company must provide to city officials under their operating agreement. The city claimed those statements do not exist, and if they did, the Times Pilot or anyone else asking for them would have to pay a city fee to retrieve and copy the documents.

The Times Pilot wrote an editorial last week titled, “Fortress of secrecy.” The editorial said, “Storm Lake City Hall is stonewalling us so hard on basic public information it makes one think that an attempt is being made to obscure poor management.”

The editorial continued: “Government should not operate this way, but we have become accustomed to it. Secrecy has become official policy.”

But it should not be, not in Storm Lake, nor in Jones County. Not for bridges, nor for water slides and hotels.

——-

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization that works for improved government transparency and citizen accountability.