Del Papa to review city-county meetings

Jeff Schweers

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The attorney's general office will decide whether Clark County and Las Vegas officials have violated Nevada's open meeting law and provide guidance for future meetings between officials from both boards.

"It is under investigation," Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said Monday after receiving a letter from the SUN alleging violations of the open meeting law. "Once we have all the facts, we will try to supply some answers in that regard."

City and county leaders have met and plan to continue to meet in secret to try to resolve tax inequities between the two jurisdictions.

The complaint focuses on whether the secret meetings skirt the open meeting law and whether the group qualifies as an advisory board or subsidiary that would be subject to the law.

Del Papa refused to comment more specifically until she had a chance to review all the facts in the case and did not want to entertain hypothetical situations.

However, she said such cases in the past have helped to clarify the law and her office "hasn't been shy" in making recommendations to the Legislature if a problem is spotted.

"I consider every time we do an open meeting law question we provide answers to someone," Del Papa said. "It's a regular, ongoing public education."

The case stems from a meeting Thursday between two City Council members and two County Commission members in which they discussed ways to solve the tax equity problem. They emerged from that meeting joined by other commission and council members to announce a pact to solve the problem.

City residents generally pay 14 percent more in property taxes than homeowners in the unincorporated county, an issue that Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and Councilman Matthew Callister have steadily hammered away at for more than a year.

While scant on details, Jones and commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said they would continue meeting privately with Callister, Woodbury and finance staff members to work out specific proposals that could be presented to the Legislature when it convenes Jan. 21.

Some commissioners got upset that they were excluded from the talks, and said it violated the spirit of the open meeting law.

But Gates said "everything we're trying to do was going to include their input. This is not done in a vacuum."

Jones said any recommendations made by the ad hoc group would have to be approved by the respective boards.

Woodbury described the meetings as an informal process between some officials, and nothing has been decided that's binding on the County Commission or done in violation of the open meeting law.

"I'm quite confident we haven't," Woodbury said. "Otherwise, that open meeting law gets violated all over the state every day if what we did constitutes a violation."

Gates said the more important issue is that the two groups are "sitting down to talk, not who is going to be part of the committee or whatever."

Thursday's meeting was held after Assistant District Attorney Johnnie Rawlinson said it would not constitute a violation of the open meeting law, because there was no quorum from either board present.

However, if a subcommittee of the County Commission meets with a subcommittee of the City Council, the open meeting law applies, said Rawlinson, chief of the district attorney's civil division.

"Our opinion is that that group would fall within the parameters of the open meeting law and that the meetings would have to be publicly noticed," Rawlinson said.

Under the law, any such meetings must be noticed three days in advance.

Generally, the attorney general takes it as a good faith effort any time a board seeks counsel before taking action -- even if the advice turned out to be inaccurate.

On the one hand, the law says that any time a quorum is present -- one more than half the board membership -- the meeting must be publicly noticed.

The law says any advisory board, subcommittee or subsidiary of a board that "makes recommendations to any entity which expends or disburses or is supported in whole or in part by tax revenue" must conduct its business in the open.

The language leaves interpretation wide open as to what constitutes such a board, which has led to some confusion among board members.

"Doesn't that take a vote of the commission to establish?" Woodbury said. "I don't know how else you can do it. Otherwise, it's an informal meeting that we decide to hold ourselves."

Meanwhile, Del Papa was to meet today with Nevada Press Association Executive Director Kent Lauer to discuss legislation to tighten up the state's open meeting law.

Del Papa wants stronger language prohibiting the use of electronic communications to circumvent the law, as her office claimed the Board of Regents did when it voted on an issue via fax machine.

Lauer wants Del Papa's support in pursuing an amendment to eliminate the quorum requirement.

"The major problem is this quorum aspect of the law," Lauer said. "We need to tighten that up."

Under current law, any time a simple majority of an elected board meets, it must post notices and invite the public. Lauer would like to see Nevada follow Florida's example, where any time two or more members of the same body are together they must conduct their business openly.

Many Nevada officials said that was too restrictive and would make it impossible to meet privately with their colleagues.

"You've got to be able to discuss issues with one another," Woodbury said. "You have to be able to bounce things off each other on a one-on-one basis."

Woodbury said if meetings have to be noted any time two or three public officials meet, "then we're in for a strange situation."

When asked to explain what he meant, Woodbury said, "It would severely restrict the ability of public officials to speak to one another on an informal basis, to discuss issues in general that are of importance."

How his ability would be restricted, Woodbury explained, "You can't calendar yourself in such a way that you're going to know exactly when you're going to talk to another official about a certain thing."

Woodbury said such meetings occur all the time and it would be ridiculous to require meetings every time two members of the same board had lunch.

"I don't know why all of a sudden there is so much attention, why the press is so adamant," Woodbury said. "Everything will be made public all in good time."

Lauer said there's nothing ridiculous about discussing a matter of public interest such as tax equity in the open.

"The issue clearly affects the public," Lauer said, "so why shouldn't the public come have an opportunity to listen to the negotiations?"

Jones

Del Papa