North Dakota State University President Joseph Chapman and two Board of Higher Education members separately discussed ways to push university system Chancellor Robert Potts to resign, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem says.

Stenehjem said Chapman believed board members had orchestrated a plan to ask Potts to quit in late March, although the attorney general said board members themselves denied knowledge of the scenario Chapman believed would happen.

Gov. John Hoeven became involved, meeting with board members John Q. Paulsen and Richie Smith in Fargo in late February to discuss Potts' job performance as the top administrator of North Dakota's university system.

Potts announced June 30 he is resigning as chancellor, with a year left on his three-year employment contract. Smith, who is an attorney in Wahpeton, is in charge of negotiating Potts' severance agreement. Paulsen, of Fargo, became president of the board July 1.

Stenehjem's statements about the maneuvering that led to Potts' departure are included in a legal opinion, issued Friday, in which he concluded board members' discussions about Potts did not violate North Dakota's open meetings law.

Paulsen said Friday he had just received the opinion and did not want to comment about it until he had read it. Potts and Smith could not be reached immediately for comment.

State Sens. Joel Heitkamp, D-Hankinson, and Mike Every, D-Minnewaukan, asked for Stenehjem's opinion after an April 21 story in the (Fargo) Forum newspaper said the board was on the verge of firing Potts.

Heitkamp and Every wanted to know if board members had been meeting illegally, without public notice, in a scheme to push out the chancellor.

Stenehjem's opinion concludes board members did nothing illegal, although it depicts a swirl of behind-the-scenes conversations about Potts' job performance, involving Chapman, Hoeven and board members. Potts' own job evaluations, including one given to the chancellor last month, were generally favorable.

Potts has described his relationship with Chapman as tense since the 2005 Legislature, when the two men disagreed about NDSU's lobbying for additional state support. Potts viewed the move as a potential fracture in the state's university system, which includes 11 public colleges.

On Feb. 28, Hoeven, Paulsen and Smith met in Fargo to discuss Potts' performance as chancellor and the possibility that Chapman might leave NDSU. At the time, he was a finalist for the presidency of the University of Wyoming. He subsequently withdrew from consideration.

"According to Mr. Paulsen, the governor did not want NDSU to lose a good president, and had concerns about the leadership style of Chancellor Potts," the opinion says. "After the meeting, Mr. Paulsen and Mr. Smith held further conversations about whether Chancellor Potts was a good fit for the university system."

Hoeven had also expressed dissatisfaction with Potts during casual conversations with other board members, the opinion says. The opinion does not detail why Hoeven was unhappy. The governor was not immediately available for comment Friday.

Chapman was widely believed to have asked for a higher salary, renovations to the NDSU president's home and Potts' dismissal as conditions for remaining at NDSU, Stenehjem's opinion says.

The opinion says Chapman conceded asking for more pay and improvements to the president's residence, but said he had not demanded Potts' removal.

David Wahlberg, an NDSU spokesman, said Friday that Chapman did not demand anything, and that no renovations are planned for the president's home. Members of NDSU's development foundation had asked Chapman what it would take to keep him in Fargo, Wahlberg said.

Stenehjem's opinion quotes Paulson as saying he and Smith decided that Smith would tell Potts "that his leadership style was not working well within the North Dakota university system, and discuss his future plans."

However, when Smith met with Potts afterward, Smith did not speak to Potts about the possibility of his resignation, the opinion says.

Separately, the opinion says, Chapman told Bismarck State College President Donna Thigpen that a board member intended to privately ask Potts to resign during a March 27 board meeting in Dickinson. Both Potts and board members said no such request happened then, the attorney general said.

When Stenehjem asked Chapman about the conversation, the NDSU president said he could not remember it, the opinion says. However, Chapman did not say Thigpen's account was wrong, and she confirmed its details in a subsequent interview, Stenehjem said. Thigpen retired as Bismarck State's president last month.

"Although Dr. Chapman's version of what was to take place during the Dickinson meeting on March 27 was apparently well known among those involved in the University System, none of the board members was aware of the plan," the opinion says. "This office was not able to discover the reason Dr. Chapman believed Chancellor Potts was going to be asked to resign at the March 27 meeting of the board in Dickinson."

The Forum story that said the board was on the verge of firing Potts was attributed to state Sen. Raymon Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, who said he had been told a majority of board members favored that Potts be cashiered.

Holmberg's statement to the newspaper arose from a conversation he had with board member Bev Clayburgh, of Grand Forks, the opinion said.

Clayburgh said her statement was "based on her own personal opinion and perspective of the other board members, and not on actual knowledge of how each member would vote, or because the members had agreed on a course of action," the opinion says.