Suit affects format of CCSN interviews

Jeffrey Libby and Ed Koch

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2000 | 10:54 a.m.

Jeffrey Libby and Ed Koch

The outcome of a lawsuit will determine whether interviews for the next president of the Community College of Southern Nevada will be public Friday or behind closed doors.

The search committee was to meet in executive session today but postponed the interviews with three of the finalists in the wake of a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, seeking to open the hearings.

The newspaper filed the suit against the University and Community College System of Nevada after the attorney general's office declined to take action, the suit says.

A hearing on the lawsuit is set for 8:30 a.m. Friday before District Judge Michael Douglas. System officials are expected to argue that a school president is not a public official and the open meeting law is not applicable in this instance.

"They (the Las Vegas Review-Journal) have completely misunderstood the meaning of public office as defined by statute and as construed by the Nevada State Constitution," Kwasi Nyamekye, assistant general counsel for the university system, said.

Suzanne Ernst, a university system spokeswoman, said the search committee will convene 9 a.m. Friday at the university system offices at 5550 W. Flamingo Road and conduct the orientation review process.

If the court rules in favor of the newspaper, the six interviews will be open to the public. If the complaint fails, the meetings will be closed, Ernst said.

The interviews and narrowing of the field to one or more finalists will have to be completed by sundown -- 6:20 p.m. -- in observance of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, Ernst said. One search committee member and one candidate are Jewish.

The finalist will be recommended to the Board of Regents at its Oct. 19-20 meeting in Carson City.

The candidates are CCSN interim President Robert Silverman; Robert Anderson, Jr., president of Northwest Community College in Rangely, Colo.; Deborah Floyd, executive assistant to the chancellor for special projects at University of Kentucky; Shirley Reed, founding president of South Texas Community College in McAllen, Texas; Diana Sloane, vice chancellor of education and technology at Los Rios Community College in Sacramento; and Frank Vivelo, president of Wharton County Junior College in Wharton, Texas.