Gov. Terry Branstad was frustrated eight years ago with what he believed was the inability of officials to tell the public why a government employee was fired or resigned under pressure

When the Legislature convened in 2017, he shepherded through the Legislature important new language in the public records law. It brought needed transparency and accountability to state and local governments. No longer would “no comment” be an acceptable response when a journalist or interested citizen asked why the school superintendent, or a local police officer, or some other government employee was pushed out.

But a case now pending before the Iowa Public Information Board has the potential to reinforce Branstad’s and the Legislature’s wisdom — or to weaken this important tool.

This case involves a Mahaska County deputy sheriff, Jesse Sanders, who resigned last May 29. At the time, Sheriff Russell Van Renterghem would only say Sanders resigned effective immediately. It was under determined prodding by Kyle Ocker, editor of the Oskaloosa Herald, that the sheriff has provided more details.

But the disclosures do not go far enough. More transparency is needed.

This case is not about idle curiosity. This case has everything to do with the need for the public to be able to monitor the administration of justice in their communities and evaluate whether a law enforcement officer has abused his position of trust.

This also is a case about whether the sheriff, the top law officer in Mahaska County, has been more focused on avoiding disclosures that might embarrass his department and has been less focused on maintaining the community’s confidence in his department and his leadership.

Many details in government employees’ personnel files — evaluations, disciplinary records, home addresses, for example — are treated as confidential by Iowa law. But the 2017 legislative change requires employers to make public what the law calls “the documented reasons and rationale” for a firing, a resignation in lieu of termination, or the demotion of a state or local government employee.

The Iowa Public Information Board, a state agency that is an arbiter of compliance, said this about “documented reasons and rationale” after the 2017 change took effect: “In order to meet the new requirement … government bodies must say which law, rule, or policy, if any, they believe the employee violated and provide at least one sentence about the behavior or incident that triggered the action. The explanation should include details, such as the date(s) of alleged behavior, location, and how it was discovered.”

That did not occur in the Mahaska County case — until Ocker began prodding for what led to the deputy’s departure. What he has learned so far is troubling. But more questions persist, and the IPIB needs to ensure the disclosures do not end now.

In response to Ocker’s request for public records, the sheriff first disclosed that he informed Sanders he “became aware of a citizen complaint regarding your on-duty activity.” An investigation found Sanders had violated multiple Iowa laws and internal Mahaska County government policies, the sheriff said in a statement.

Ocker continued to push for more details, believing the information provided did not satisfy the IPIB’s 2018 advisory opinion. But the sheriff resisted, telling the IPIB he had disclosed all that was required. The additional details Ocker sought were protected from release, the sheriff said, by what is known in Iowa law as the “peace officer bill of rights.”

In an effort to resolve Ocker’s complaint with the IPIB, the sheriff finally revised his public statement about Sanders last week and said of the deputy, “The nature of this complaint was that you were involved in a 3 1/2 year ongoing personal relationship with a citizen while on duty in Mahaska County.”

The sheriff released a summary of the laws and policies Sanders allegedly violated. Those include dereliction of duty, dishonesty, immoral conduct or insubordination, absence from duty without permission, and taking from the sheriff’s office lost-and-found property, stolen property or property being held as evidence.

One of Ocker’s reporters interviewed me in my role as executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for better government transparency and accountability. I said people in Mahaska County should not be kept in the dark about how this deputy’s “personal relationship” could be carried out during the officer’s on-duty hours for more than three years without the sheriff’s knowledge.

Did the deputy’s “on-duty activity” with this unnamed person delay the deputy’s response time to emergency calls? Did the deputy engage in any other improper conduct while on duty? And how did this “activity” finally come to light?

The details provided thus far by Mahaska County remain too vague and insufficient to meet the expectations Governor Branstad and the Legislature wrote into the public records law. It is time for the IPIB to fully enforce its own advisory opinion on this important statute.

Ocker told the IPIB last week the term “personal relationship” is overly broad and ambiguous. He offered a couple of hypotheticals to illustrate the imprecise nature of the phrase. An on-duty personal relationship could include having regular conversations in the squad car with a family friend, or it might involve sexual encounters in the squad car while on duty and providing the sexual partner with some form of preferential treatment.

Ocker added: “This disclosure also contains no details regarding the alleged violation of the sheriff’s office policy regarding employees of the office utilizing lost, found or stolen property in possession of the office for their own use, including property held for evidentiary purposes.”

The Legislature and Governor Branstad made important strides eight years ago in providing needed transparency and accountability. But the IPIB now needs to ensure the outcome of this Mahaska County complaint puts into action the concepts lawmakers and the governor established in 2017.

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Randy Evans is the executive director of the

Iowa Freedom of Information Council. He can be

reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.