Fight to change NLV meetings may not be over

Dan Kulin

Monday, Feb. 10, 2003 | 8:56 a.m.

After losing a court fight, the man behind an effort to have voters decide whether to change some North Las Vegas City Council meeting policies plans to launch another petition drive to get the measure before voters in November 2004.

"I wish I had the money to fight it," Glen Easter said of District Judge Mark Denton's Friday ruling that will keep Easter's question off this year's city ballot. "But it costs me nothing to just go out and do another petition. We'll redo the petition and put it on the 2004 election.

"This is about our right to speak at council meetings before they vote."

Easter's proposed ballot question would have asked voters to require a public comment period at the beginning of all meetings and allow any council member or resident to place items on a meeting agenda.

It also would have moved the starting time of council meetings from 6 to 7 p.m. and increased the amount of time each citizen is allowed to speak during meetings from five minutes to 10 minutes.

Easter, an apartment manager who has lived in North Las Vegas for almost 30 years, led the drive to collect more than 1,500 signatures on the petition to get the matter on the spring ballot.

Soon after the signatures were verified, the City Council voted to challenge the ballot question in court, saying the question should not be allowed because it dealt with administrative changes, and ballot questions are reserved for legislative matters.

While Denton agreed to throw out the petition, his ruling gave Easter hope for a new petition. The judge said some of the proposed changes were likely legislative matters.

"The public forum and agenda speaking items are likely matters of legislation, not administration, since they bear upon the manner in which the public's representatives are to treat the very premise of council meetings," Denton said in his ruling.

"However, the proponents of the initiative petition did not confine themselves to those issues. Rather, they have sought to fine-tune their proposed ordinance to the point that matters of administration, such as meeting times and rules of order, have resulted in the proverbial legislative 'wheat' being mired with the administrative 'chaff.' "

Easter said his next petition will probably be limited to establishing a second public forum at the beginning of meetings and allowing any council member or resident to place items on a meeting agenda. Now the public is guaranteed the right to speak only during a public comment period at the end of meetings, and the city manager sets the meeting agenda.

Mayor Michael Montandon said the judge's decision was not a surprise because "we thought they were all administrative (issues)."

North Las Vegas City Attorney Sean McGowan could not immediately be reached for comment.

Michael Stein, a private lawyer who helped argue Easter's case before Denton, said although he disagrees with parts of the ruling, the judge's decision is a "huge victory" for Easter. It says the right to speak before the council votes is a legislative matter, he said.

Allen Lichtenstein, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada who also helped Easter, said it would be up to Easter and the members of Easter's group, the Freedom of Speech Committee, to decide whether to appeal Denton's ruling.