Mayor scolded on restricting man’s input before council

Mathis Winkler

Tuesday, March 5, 2002 | 8:46 a.m.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon is unfazed by a reprimand from the attorney general's office for refusing to let a member of the public speak during a City Council meeting.

If anything he's a little confused, Montandon said Monday.

"Basically it said we didn't do anything wrong, but be careful and don't do it again," he said, adding that he will continue to let members of the public speak "as often as they need to."

In an opinion issued Feb. 25, Deputy Attorney General Aimee Banales said the mayor's refusal to acknowledge Mike Thomas "may be perceived as a violation of the spirit of the open meeting law." She added that similar problems in the future may be prosecuted by the attorney general's office, which enforces the state's open meeting law.

Free-speech advocates said the ruling confirmed their views that Montandon's decision to ignore Thomas was wrong.

"The sort of abuse of discretion we witnessed in the Thomas case is precisely the sort of thing we were concerned about," said Gary Peck, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada.

The ruling was the second in less than two weeks addressing the issue of public comments during North Las Vegas City Council meetings.

On Feb. 6 Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams found that city officials did not violate the law by changing the wording on the council agenda.

Previous agendas stated that residents should submit cards if they wanted to speak "on any agenda item, or in the Public Forum." But beginning with the Jan. 2 meeting, the language was changed to simply read: "If you wish to speak, please complete one of the blue cards." "I looked to find a violation, but what I found was relatively reasonable," Adams said.

Adams added that she didn't have a "flesh and blood example" of a violation, as Banales did.

Thomas, who is not a North Las Vegas resident, but is involved in litigation with the city and is frequent council critic, filed his complaint after Montandon refused to let him speak on 13 of 44 agenda items during the Nov. 7 meeting.

City officials said Thomas actually handed in 30 cards requesting to speak.

During the meeting Montandon said he had heard Thomas was simply trying to disrupt the meeting by handing in so many cards, and he let him speak only during the public forum portion of the meeting.

Benales concluded that Montandon should have waited to see whether Thomas would really disrupt the meeting before throwing out his cards.