LV council to consider three bills for Legislature

Monday, Aug. 2, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday will consider three proposed bills for the 2005 Nevada Legislature, including a measure to allow the city's Emergency Management Committee to shut the public out of its meetings when discussing sensitive security matters.

The proposal would allow the committee to adjourn open meetings and go into closed-door session to talk about issues such as terrorism response plans.

"This action is just to bring us in line with the state and federal homeland security boards that already are permitted to do this," said Tim McAndrew, emergency management officer for the city of Las Vegas. "It is a matter of consistency."

McAndrew said there had been no cases to date in which he or other city officials wanted to present information to the other board members but decided not to for fear that the information would be reported and that terrorists could use it to harm the city.

"We would only be allowed to call for a closed session if it were for sensitive issues, such as a briefing on our vulnerability," McAndrew said.

McAndrew said it is probable that closed sessions would not occur at every meeting and it also is possible the city may never need to call for a closed session. Still, he said, the option should be available to the city as it is for similar boards at the state and federal level.

Jim O'Brien, emergency management director for Clark County, does not see a need for closed sessions at local levels. He said meetings of the regional Emergency Planning Committee, which includes city officials, are open to the public in their entirety. And he believes they should stay that way.

"The real sensitive stuff already has been handled by the people with security clearance at the federal level," O'Brien said. "Just look at our agenda and you can see that such (sensitive) issues just don't take place at this level."

Items on that regional homeland group's agenda in May -- the most recent meeting -- included development of "a standard orientation presentation" for various plans including the terrorism response plan and a report on how community organizations can be active during disasters.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, declined to comment on whether the proposal unfairly limits public access without first seeing a copy of the bill draft.

The city has yet to produce such a draft. The only agenda backup information city officials provided was a memo briefly explaining the proposed bill package.

Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell said the bill drafts are not done until the city staff gets direction from the City Council, which it should on Wednesday, as to what direction should be taken on the issues. Even then, just the concept is submitted to the Legislative Counsel Bureau which drafts the bill, she said.

Kent Lauer, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, an organization that keeps tabs on matters of public access to government, said, "There's always a balance between genuine security needs and the public's right to know what its government is doing. The problem occurs when government officials use security as a broad reason for closed meetings and other forms of secrecy."

Other city bill drafts

While the city by law is allowed to present four bills to the Legislature, the entity has opted to submit three.

The other two bill draft proposals would: