A Polk County judge ruled Oct. 28 that two current and three former members of the state Board of Regents did not violate Iowa’s Open Meetings Law by meeting with University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld prior to his hiring in 2015.

Defense attorneys filed a motion Oct. 27 to postpone the court case that raised questions over the legality of the regents’ meetings with Harreld after previously motioning for summary judgment to drop the case ahead of a Nov. 6 nonjury trial date.

Fifth District Court Judge William Kelly did not immediately rule on the defense attorneys’ request to drop the case at an Oct. 6 hearing, but granted the defense attorneys’ motions Monday.

The case addressed former Regent President Bruce Rastetter’s efforts to circumvent Iowa Open Meetings Law to meet privately with Harreld during the presidential search process in 2015.

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Rastetter acknowledged in depositions that the meetings were coordinated in such a way so as to circumvent open-meetings law. Harreld met with regents no more than two at a time to avoid constituting a meeting, including Mary Andringa, Larry McKibben, Milt Dakovich, and Katie Mulholland. A meeting would require a majority of the nine-member governing board to be present at one time.

“Saying part of the reason we set it up this way was to comply with the law is hardly a reason for criticism of a public official in this day and age,”defense attorney Richard Sapp said at the October hearing.

Gary Dickey, the attorney for plaintiff Gerhild Krapf, a former UI employee, argued Oct. 6 that while the regents never met in a physical majority, they met in close temporal proximity. Dickey argued this constitutes “serial submajority gatherings” due to the back-to-back manner in which the meetings were held at Rastetter’s Summit Agricultural Group office, 10640 County Road D20, Alden, Iowa on July 30, 2015.

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