25FC:0099 Mount Pleasant Municipal Utilities & West Liberty Electric v. Resale Power Group of Iowa- Investigative Report & Probable Cause Order

The Iowa Public Information Board

COMES NOW, Alexander Lee, Agency Counsel for the Iowa Public Information Board (“IPIB”), and enters this Investigative Report:

On July 28, 2025, Mount Pleasant Municipal Utilities and West Liberty Electric (Complainants) filed formal complaint 25FC:0099, alleging that the Resale Power Group of Iowa (Respondent) violated Iowa Code Chapter 21.

The IPIB accepted this Complaint on August 21, 2025.

Facts

Respondent is an association of public and private municipal utility agencies, created pursuant to Iowa Code Chapter 28E, which provides for the joint exercise of governmental powers. Respondent’s stated purpose is to “purchase[] electric energy, capacity, and transmission service as agent for and on behalf of [their] participant members,” allowing the member utilities to negotiate for lower costs. Complainants are Iowa Code Chapter 388 city utilities which held membership in Respondent’s governing bodies at the time this complaint was brought.

Respondent is comprised of a General Body made up of representatives from each of the approximately two dozen participating agencies and administratively governed by a seven-member Administrative Board, elected from the General Body. The parties agree that both the General Body and the Administrative Board are governmental bodies, as described by Iowa Code § 21.2(1)(j). Meetings of the General Body are held on an annual, quarterly, and special basis. Meetings of the Administrative Board are held on a monthly and special basis.

In July 2025, both the Administrative Board and the General Body held meetings to consider entering into a proposed “participation agreement” with Networked Transmission Systems, Inc. (“NTSI”), a third-party entity. On July 28, 2025, Complainants filed formal complaint 25FC:0099, alleging four violations of Chapter 21 arising from Respondent’s meetings on this subject. Three alleged violations were accepted on facial review for further investigation, as described below.

1. Allegations Related to Meeting Notice & Access

On July 24, Respondent’s Administrative Board held a hybrid meeting, which included discussion of responses to a pending legal action. On July 25, a special session virtual meeting of Respondent’s General Body was held to discuss the NSTI Agreement, which the Administrative Board had already voted to pursue at a prior meeting on July 18. Agendas for both the July 24 and July 25 meetings were uploaded to Respondent’s website through an online file sharing service, but these postings required special login access to view and were therefore effectively inaccessible to the general public. IPIB staff confirmed this access issue at the time the complaint was received.

It is undisputed that Respondent typically only posts meeting notices to its website, without a physical posting. However, Respondent believes that there is not an obvious physical location which would satisfy Chapter 21, as the 28E entity lacks a principal office, generally hosts its meetings virtually, and does not have a clear point of origin for its meetings.

After receiving this complaint, Respondent held additional meetings, with online notice posted on its website, to recertify each of the votes taken at the July 24 and July 25 meetings. Respondent had also stated its willingness to follow IPIB’s guidance with regards to physical posting requirements, which presents a novel issue of law.

2. Missing Information in Meeting Minutes

In August 2025, during the investigation phase of this complaint, Respondent released a series of six draft meeting minutes to their members, including four Administrative Board meetings and two General Body meetings from July 2025 and August 2025. Following this email, the Complainants expanded their complaint on August 29, 2025, to include an additional allegation for deficiencies in the draft minutes relating to the identification of members present and the documentation of how individual members voted.

Respondent states that the attendance and voting information existed in separate meeting notes, which could be used to supplement the existing draft records. On October 22, 2025, Respondent released amended drafts of the minutes which were intended to address these deficiencies.

3. Respondent’s Closed Session on July 18

On July 18, Respondent’s Administrative Board went into closed session pursuant to Iowa Code § 21.5(1)(a) to review confidential records related to the NTSI agreement under consideration. Following the closed session, the Administrative Board returned to open session and voted to proceed with the NTSI contract, subject to the approval of the General Body on July 25, 2025.

Complainants allege this closed session was improper, as no NTSI contract existed prior to or as of the General Body’s July 25 meeting, and discussion of the prospective agreement without an existing record entitled to confidentiality would exceed the scope of the closed session exception. Respondent asserts that the closed session was held to review proprietary information from the NTSI, rather than a draft contract or the NTSI agreement as a whole.

Applicable Law

“Except as provided in [Iowa Code § 21.4(3)], a governmental body shall give notice of the time, date, and place of each meeting including a reconvened meeting of the governmental body, and the tentative agenda of the meeting, in a manner reasonably calculated to apprise the public of that information. Reasonable notice shall include advising the news media who have filed a request for notice with the governmental body and posting the notice on a bulletin board or other prominent place which is easily accessible to the public and clearly designated for that purpose at the principal office of the body holding the meeting, or if no such office exists, at the building in which the meeting is to be held.” Iowa Code § 21.4(1)(a).

“A governmental body shall provide for hybrid meetings, teleconference participation, virtual meetings, remote participation, and other hybrid options for the members of the governmental body to participate in official meetings. A governmental body conducting a meeting pursuant to this subsection shall comply with all of the following:

a. The governmental body provides public access to the conversation of the meeting to the extent reasonably possible.

b. The governmental body complies with section 21.4. For the purpose of this paragraph, the place of the meeting is the place from which the communication originates or where public access is provided to the conversation.” Iowa Code § 21.8(1).

“Each governmental body shall keep minutes of all its meetings showing the date, time and place, the members present, and the action taken at each meeting. The minutes shall show the results of each vote taken and information sufficient to indicate the vote of each member present.” Iowa Code § 21.3(2).

“A governmental body may hold a closed session only to the extent a closed session is necessary for any of the following reasons:

a. To review or discuss records which are required or authorized by state or federal law to be kept confidential or to be kept confidential as a condition for that governmental body’s possession or continued receipt of federal funds.” Iowa Code § 21.5(1)(a).

Analysis

1. Allegations Related to Meeting Notice & Access

Respondent has acknowledged that the login access restrictions for its July 24 and July 25 meetings prevented the public (and some of its members) from receiving the advance meeting notice required by Iowa Code § 21.4, as Respondent’s website was the only location where notice was ever posted.

It is recommended that IPIB redirect this portion of the complaint for further mediation pursuant to Iowa Code § 23.9, including on the novel legal issue of “reasonable” notice for purely electronic meetings held by a governmental body without a principal office or a publicly accessible “place of the meeting” within the definition provided by Iowa Code § 21.4(1)(a).

2. Missing Information in Meeting Minutes

Chapter 21 requires governmental bodies to keep meeting minutes with “the date, time and place, the members present, and the action taken at each meeting.” Iowa Code § 21.3(2). Whenever action is taken, minutes must also include “the results of each vote taken and information sufficient to indicate the vote of each member present.” Id.

Respondent has acknowledged that some of its draft meeting minutes were missing statutorily required details.[1] Nevertheless, the minutes in question were drafts emailed to members for review, not final version released at the request of any member of the public. During the course of IPIB’s investigation, Respondent amended its draft minutes to be statutorily compliant and released finalized versions to Complainants.

Because the deficiencies in the draft minutes shared with members did not interfere with Respondent’s duty to “keep minutes of all its meetings” including required information and maintain those minutes as “public records open to public inspection,” it is recommended that IPIB dismiss this portion of the complaint for lack of probable cause to believe a violation has occurred.

3. Respondent’s Closed Session on July 18

Iowa Code § 21.5(1)(a) permits governmental bodies to enter closed session “[t]o review or discuss records which are required or authorized by state or federal law to be kept confidential.” Respondent’s Administrative Board relied on this provision for its July 18 closed session, which Respondent asserts was used to review certain proprietary information provided by the NTSI as part of its consideration of a proposed agreement for membership. According to Respondent, these records were confidential pursuant to Iowa Code § 22.7(3) as “[t]rade secrets which are recognized and protected as such by law.” See Iowa Code § 550.2(4) (defining “trade secret”).

Complainants relied on the July 18 meeting minutes for this portion of the complaint, as the minutes reflect a vote taken upon return to open session “to proceed with [the] NTSI contract.” Complainants alleged that this action item was evidence of a possible closed session violation, as Respondent has separately reported that no NTSI contact existed as of July 25, and discussion of a non-existent contract would be outside the scope of trade secret documents allowed to be kept confidential by Iowa law. However, Respondent has plausibly clarified that this closed session was instead held to review pre-agreement materials provided by the NTSI, rather than a proposed contract which both parties agree did not exist at the time.

Because Respondent’s explanation is consistent with the meeting minutes, and because no other evidence has been presented to suggest other records were reviewed during this closed session, it is recommended that IPIB dismiss this portion of the complaint for lack of probable cause to believe a violation has occurred.

IPIB Action

The Board may take the following actions upon receipt of a probable cause report:

a. Redirect the matter for further investigation;

b. Dismiss the matter for lack of probable cause to believe a violation has occurred;

c. Make a determination that probable cause exists to believe a violation has occurred, but, as an exercise of administrative discretion, dismiss the matter; or

d. Make a determination that probable cause exists to believe a violation has occurred, designate a prosecutor and direct the issuance of a statement of charges to initiate a contested case proceeding.

Iowa Admin. Code r. 497-2.2(4).

Recommendation

Based on the foregoing analysis, it is recommended that the second and third allegations described in the complaint be dismissed for lack of probable cause, with the first allegation redirected for further investigation and informal resolution.

By the IPIB Agency Counsel,

_________________________

Alexander Lee, J.D.

CERTIFICATE OF MAILING

This document was sent on April 8, 2026, to:

Mount Pleasant Municipal Utilities & West Liberty Electric, Complainants

Resale Power Group of Iowa, Respondents