With two private attorneys and two state deputy attorneys general in tow, a state committee overseeing the Idaho Education Network wasted little time Friday morning before going behind closed doors.

The Program Resource Advisory Council, better known as IPRAC, went into executive session to discuss Idaho’s legal options in the dispute over the $60 million broadband contract.

District Judge Patrick Owen voided the contract in a Nov. 10 ruling; the state’s attorneys filed a motion Tuesday asking the judge to clarify his intent — or reconsider his decision.

Idaho’s open meeting law allows an agency to meet behind closed doors “to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation, or controversies not yet being litigated but imminently likely to be litigated.”

Before the committee went into executive session, committee chairman and State Superintendent Tom Luna said the entire meeting would be closed. The meeting would be strictly informational, he said, with no formal action taken. Open meetings law forbids an agency from taking any final action in an executive session.

For more about the legal and legislative issues surrounding the Idaho Education Network, here’s a link to my story from Thursday.