Del Papa affirms city leaders’ right to confidential ethics advice

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1998 | 11:20 a.m.

If public officials with the city of Las Vegas need advice about the ethics of anticipated votes or conduct, they can receive it -- behind closed doors.

The city of Las Vegas Ethics Review Board is not required to disclose such discussions, according to an opinion from the state attorney general's office.

Retired Judge Earle White Jr., who chairs the local Ethics Review Board, had requested the attorney general's opinion. Even after reading the state open-meetings law, he was not certain whether disclosure was necessary when a board re-enters an open meeting following a closed session called to hear an ethical question.

Deputy City Attorney Larry Bettis, paraphrasing a 1994 opinion by Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, told Ethics Review Board members last week that they have the legal right to keep private their decisions made in such closed conferences.

"City officials and city employees may request opinions regarding their future conduct and whether or not their future conduct could constitute a violation of the city's ethics code," Bettis told the board. "The attorney general concluded that yes, this body can conduct closed, confidential meetings about future actions."

Reporting in a public session about what advice the Ethics Review Board gave a public official in private would jeopardize the confidentiality afforded in personnel cases, Bettis said.

"Each request submitted to a local ethics committee, each opinion rendered by a committee and any motion relating to the opinion is confidential," Del Papa wrote, unless the public official involved chooses to disclose any such request.

Discussions of any past actions a city official made, however, must be held in open meetings.

Kevin Doty, general counsel for the Nevada Press Association, agreed with the attorney general's opinion.

"It does give the right to go ahead and close those meetings," Doty said. "There is an exception carved out in law in a special statute for these kinds of Ethics Review Boards."