Fremont County commissioners take secret library vote
RIVERTON — There’s been much ado about the Fremont County Library System in recent months: As commissioners slashed the libraries’ budget by 22%, commission chair Larry Allen hinted that if declining property tax revenue continues, Fremont County libraries themselves may face the chopping block.
And last week, as those budget figures became reality, the Fremont County Commission took another vote of consequence for the county’s libraries: appointing two new members to the library board.
Karen Wetzel, who has been dogged in airing her concerns about some library materials in the young adult section being inappropriate, and David Mossburg, husband of current library board member Marta Mossburg, were both appointed.
After rounds of interviews with potential board candidates, commissioners didn’t deliberate out loud their thoughts on the applicants asking to lead the library system; instead, they cast votes via secret ballot, then affirmed those votes without discussion after their lunch recess.
Transparency laws in Wyoming guard against governments making decisions by secret ballots.
In January, the Riverton City Council ended a decades-long practice of appointing the council’s president and vice president that way after Mayor Tim Hancock, an attorney himself, was approached by The Ranger with case law that ruled such secret ballots illegal.
In this instance, Fremont County commissioners used secret ballots for a ranked-choice voting approach as they headed into the lunch break on Tuesday. They then came back to cast a more “official” vote to mirror their secret decision in public, without deliberation, after filling their bellies.
How it went down
After interviews with candidates ranging from retired librarians to outspoken advocates against porn, commissioners weighed their options.
Just before the lunch break on Tuesday, they were asked to write their secret votes on paper ballots. When they returned for their afternoon session, Commissioner Mike Jones, who serves as the liaison to the library board, summed it up.
“We did a ballot right before we went to lunch, and we have a tally of votes and the two new appointees to the library board are Karen Wetzel and David Mossburg,” he said.
“Is that a motion?” asked chairman Larry Allen.
“So moved,” replied Jones.
Allen then expressed the desire that the board name an alternate appointee in the event that the county received a legal opinion that took issue with the Mossburgs being related.
Jones said candidate Cady Shoutis was the third-highest vote getter, and Allen asked whether he wanted to add her as an alternate to his motion.
“Sure,” Jones replied.
The commissioners voted unanimously on the appointment.
Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese explained the ranked-choice, secret-ballot process used by commissioners came after a new policy was adopted in 2023, when tensions were perhaps at their highest when it comes to the library and its materials.
A policy provision
In 2023, in part due to how political library board appointments had become, Fremont County commissioners adopted a broad policy outlining how they might appoint candidates. It included details about how applicants for such boards and appointments would be taken and suggested secret ballots might be used.
The policy outlines an “optional” voting process: “Paper ballots should be given to each commissioner; instructions on how the vote will be counted should be given by the chairman; ballots are to be gathered and give [sic] to the administrative assistant or county clerk for counting; ballot calculations should be shared with the board for review; results of all applicants shall be made public; the destruction of the ballots should be determined.”
The commissioners did not air the weighted vote tallies during the meeting.
But Freese confirmed that Wetzel received 22 points, Molly Selley received 15, Shoutis netted 18, applicant Phyllis Roseberry garnered seven, David Mossburg received 22, and applicant Julie LeFevre got 11.
What the courts say
Secret-ballot votes aren’t lawful in Wyoming.
Several court cases highlight votes taken that way, both high-stakes and low, as illegal under the state’s Public Meetings Act.
The 2012 case Rawlins Daily Times v. Carbon County School District #2 involved the school board violating Wyoming transparency laws when it used a secret-ballot process to appoint a person to a vacant position on its own board.
When challenged in court, Carbon County #2 folded, entering into a consent order that agreed: It had violated state law in its secret-ballot appointment.
More recently, Weston County commissioners copped to their similar secret-ballot vote in a much more high-stakes decision: Filling a vacant seat in the state legislature.
In that case, Weston County commissioners joined Niobrara and Goshen commissioners in appointing a person to fill a seat in the Wyoming House of Representatives vacated by Hans Hunt.
That lawsuit found that Weston County commissioners violated transparency laws in several ways.
First, they privately discussed how they’d fill the legislative seat and whom they’d appoint outside a public meeting as required by law, and second, they made their votes by secret ballot.
The News Letter Journal and a panel of concerned citizens sued when the commissioners refused to disclose information about their secret votes, and by stipulated order the district court found in 2023 that “voting by secret or anonymous ballot and conducting county business through electronic communication with a quorum of members violates the Public Meetings Act.”
In the agreement, the parties stated the violation wasn’t intentional.
Just fix it
Sometimes government entities attempt to correct an illegal vote with a legal one.
Fremont County commissioners, just after lunch, held a public vote to affirm their secret-ballot, ranked-choice votes, without discussion save for Allen, who said they ought to confirm Shoutis as their alternate in case of legal concerns.
But Wyoming’s Supreme Court has weighed in on that, too.
Apparently, trying to remedy an illegal vote by taking a public one does not satisfy the law unless certain requirements are met.
In Gronberg v. Teton County Housing Authority, 2011 Wyo. 13, the Supreme Court was asked whether the governing body could fix its secret – in this case, an illegal vote in executive session – decision by simply taking a public vote on the matter.
And while Teton County’s Housing Authority re-debated its decision in public, Wyoming’s Supreme Court took the opportunity to spell out the legal remedy for violating the law with a secret vote.
The government must, the high court held, publicly discuss and deliberate the issue, then publicly vote again, to cure the violation of the law.
In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that in order to right the wrong taken in a secret vote, the governing body must conduct “a new and substantial reconsideration of the action in a manner which complies with the [Public Meetings Act].”
Further, the new vote must afford the public “ample opportunity to know the facts and to be heard with reference to the matter at issue,” Wyoming’s high court ruled.
‘Just the way we do it’
Commissioners were questioned about the secret-ballot process just ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
“When we have multiple candidates like that, we actually have a policy that tells us how to do that,” noted Jones. “It’s a practical matter more than anything else, because oftentimes you have one commissioner say ‘I like these two,’ while another commissioner likes a different two. Then you can spend a lot of time going back and forth. So that’s just the way we do it.”
When asked whether he had any legal concerns about using secret ballots, Jones said the county attorney had reviewed the policy, gesturing to Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt.
“He’s correct,” responded Wyatt.
“We’ve done it before and nobody ever said anything about it until it was the library,” added commissioner Clarence Thomas.
‘A veil between the board and the public’
During Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners briefly discussed the voting procedure used for the library board appointments, perhaps as a result of the questions raised by this newspaper.
Allen said the commissioners followed their own policy.
“I recognize, of course, the way the vote happened puts a bit of a veil between the board and the public who doesn’t necessarily get to see every single ballot,” Wyatt explained. “I think there was an additional issue in how the vote was administered. The ballots were handed out right before lunch recess. They were tabulated over the lunch break and then returned to a regular session and the results were announced.
“ If I had my druthers and I could make one change,” Wyatt continued, “I probably would have had all that happen in one area of an open meeting as opposed to sort of on either side of a recess, and I think that maybe is just something that the board needs to keep in mind, that any time there’s a future vote. Because that leaves a question as to whether the open meetings act was followed.
“But in this case, according to my review, it appears that the vote was all done in public forums, in accordance with the act … But certainly, you know, we strive to make these decisions open to the public,” said Wyatt. “I appreciate everyone’s feedback, having these decisions be open. The public is certainly the community’s right and the board’s responsibility.”
This story was published on July 2, 2025.