The Fremont County Commission is hamstrung between a local newspaper and an ousted library board member.
The paper says the vote appointing David Mossburg to the library board was illegal, while Mossburg says the re-vote that ousted him, rather, broke the law.
The commission in June tallied up votes for Fremont County Library Board candidates from secret, weighted ballots, then held a public voice vote to appoint the two top vote-getters to the library board.
Community pressure and outrage followed.
Who serves on the library board is a hotter topic than in years past, as controversies over sexually explicit books have erupted in Fremont County multiple times since about 2022.
The Ranger, a local newspaper with ownership that also includes the Lander Journal, sent a letter via its attorney, saying the commission had broken the law with its secret ballot system.
Cowboy State Daily requested that letter Friday from both The Ranger and its law firm, Wages Group. Neither granted it by publication time.
Sarah Squires, editor of The Ranger, sent Cowboy State Daily a statement Friday via email.
“It’s illegal for local governments to use secret ballots to make decisions,” the statement says. "It’s important that we ensure transparency laws are followed.”
Local residents also wrote letters to the paper’s editor and voiced their disapproval to the commission.
A Re-Vote
Though the maneuver wasn’t on its agenda for Tuesday’s regular meeting, the commission held a re-vote that day. This time, each of the five commissioners called out his or her top two picks for the library board positions, aloud.
Commissioner Ron Fabrizius opposed the holding of a re-vote.
At least some commissioners’ votes changed, but Fabrizius’ did not, he told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
David Mossburg, the new library board member appointed in June, was ousted in favor of Julie LeFevre.
Mossburg has voiced opposition to sexual content in the kids' section of the library.
LeFevre told the commission when she interviewed in June that the books in the library have been vetted by professionals and she doesn't believe them to be pornographic.
Mossburg told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that he’s going to file a court action to block the re-vote. He’d been serving on the library board for at least three months when it happened.
“I just assumed they got rid of me for some sort of cause, and that wasn’t the case,” he said. “They didn’t even notify me they were having another vote, and meanwhile, I’m over here working on library stuff on my own time.”
Two Wyoming attorneys with extensive experience regarding public board meetings are at loggerheads on whether that June ballot action was illegal.
Lawyer From The North Country
Charlie Anderson, retired Gillette city attorney and former Campbell County Library Board member, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that the June vote sounds unnecessarily complicated, but legal — while the October vote sounds illegal.
He cited two Wyoming Supreme Court cases: Groneberg v. Teton County Housing Authority, and Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods v. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The first says a board that acts illegally can come back and hold a re-vote to correct it.
And the second case says a board that acts legally can’t come back and hold a re-vote to alter it after the fact.
That secret ballot was “problematic because it raises issues,” said Anderson. "They made it more difficult than they needed to. But if they did all that and came back into open session (and voted the top candidates in via public vote), that’s the official action.”
It was murky, but probably legal, Anderson said.
The October re-vote, however, sounds like an illegal attempt to correct an official action, he added.
“And that person (Mossburg) who said, ‘You can’t kick me off except by cause’ — he’s right,” said Anderson.
The Fremont County Commission has been appointing library board members via weighted ballot since at least 2023, its past meeting minutes show.
“I understand why they want to do it that way,” said Anderson, “but it adds a complication and a sort of confusing result.”
Still, he continued, the board may have intended it innocently.
The Press Titan
Bruce Moats, longtime former attorney for the Wyoming Press Association, came to almost the opposite conclusion of Anderson about the first meeting.
Though the Wyoming Supreme Court hasn’t addressed this secret ballot method, cases lending credence to The Ranger’s point exist, said Moats.
Moats argued the 2012 case of Rawlins Daily Times v. Carbon County School District No. 2 in which the school board used a secret ballot to fill a vacancy.
The board entered a consent decree admitting it was wrong, but the judge declined to bolster the admission with an order of his own, said Moats.
Moats gave this logic: By law, Wyoming public boards can’t descend into executive session to discuss appointments to library boards.
“And jeez, if you can’t go do it in executive session, then certainly you can’t do it by secret ballot,” he said.
As to whether the second meeting with its re-vote was legal, Moats wasn’t sure.
“Well, I’ve not had that happen,” he said, referencing the fact that commissioners changed the outcome with their re-vote.
The fact that the re-vote wasn’t on the regular meeting’s agenda didn’t render it illegal, however, he said, adding that only special meetings are tightly bound to their agendas under Wyoming’s law.
More About That Vote
The five county commissioners on June 24 filled out weighted ballots to choose between six candidates for two library board positions.
Two of the candidates — Mossburg, who’s the husband of current library board member Marta Mossburg, and Karen Wetzel — have both voiced strong opposition to allowing sexual content in the library.
Mossburg and Wetzel both won the seats that day.
The commission did not disclose during that meeting which commissioner voted for which candidates. But they held a public voice vote to select the two winners-by-tally.
The two defeated the other four candidates: Cady Shoutis, Julie LeFevre, Molly Selley, and Phyllis Roseberry.
But the commission chose to keep Shoutis pending as an alternate in case it received legal advice that the married couple couldn’t serve on the board together.
County Attorney OK’d It
Commissioners started receiving pressure from community members about the secret vote, the board’s meeting minutes and The Ranger’s opinion page both show.
Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt delivered advice to the board July 1, telling it that the vote “was done in accordance with board policy.”
“I recognize of course ... that that puts up a veil between the board doing their vote and the public, who doesn’t necessarily get to see every single ballot,” said Wyatt at the time.
Another issue is that the weighted votes were tabulated over the lunch break rather than during open session, Wyatt added.
But, the attorney added, the “public meetings act (laws) were followed in this case, according to my review.”
Wyatt did not respond to a Friday voicemail request for comment.
Commission Chair Larry Allen and Commissioners Mike Jones and Clarence Thomas also did not respond to Friday morning voicemails.
Commissioner Jennifer Wilson declined to comment, saying she’s not sure if litigation on this matter is active or merely possible.
Commissioner Fabrizius interviewed with Cowboy State Daily on Friday, saying he disagrees with the re-vote
“I think it might be headed for the courts,” he said.
He noted that during David Mossburg’s fleeting term on the library board, it advanced a proposed move to withdraw its membership from the American Library Association to the public comment phase, a precedent to enactment.
Detractors of the ALA, like Fabrizius, say it’s a hyperpolitical group that pushes inappropriate content for kids. Proponents of the ALA say it’s a valuable resource for libraries.
Fabrizius had argued Tuesday during the meeting that he likes the secret ballot system, “because we don’t embarrass people. … I think it’s a good thing they came forward and put their names in the hat, and I don’t want to offend them.”
Jones countered.
“Transparency is a pretty big issue today — and I think (when) running for commission or offering to serve on a board, you forfeit (to) a certain amount of public embarrassment,” Jones said during the meeting. “I can have a fair exchange for the public and the people we want to serve.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
