Regents divided on proposed settlement

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.

Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval has agreed not to pursue the most recent open-meeting law complaint against the state Board of Regents as long as the regents agree to develop procedures to prevent future violations.

The proposed settlement essentially would resolve all of the remaining issues between the attorney general's office and the University and Community College System of Nevada, interim Chancellor Jim Rogers said.

But only if he can get at least seven of the 13 regents to agree to it.

Those signatures may be hard to get, as the proposal has earned both praise and scorn from regents who have been split over the open-meeting issue since November.

The proposed settlement drops the attorney general's original demand that the regents admit they violated the law when their attorney Tom Ray refused to give out Rogers' proposed employment contract. It also drops the attorney general's initial call for the regents to admit that they are "serial violators" of the open-meeting law. Several regents balked at those admissions.

The latest proposed settlement would require the Board of Regents to drop another open-meeting law case they were appealing to the Nevada Supreme Court. In doing so, Sandoval essentially asks regents to accept a District Court judge's ruling that they violated the law in a November 2003 meeting, regents said.

District Judge Jackie Glass had ruled that the regents violated the open-meeting law when they deliberated and formed a consensus in closed session to demote Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and lobbyist John Cummings.

Rogers and Sandoval each said the latest settlement proposal is the best option.

"We're ready, willing and able to go forward on this in terms of court," Sandoval said. "But in terms of saving public money and allowing the board to get back to the business of education, we thought it would be better to resolve this now."

The important thing, Sandoval said, was to ensure the regents follow the law in the future. The proposed agreement does not specify how that will happen, but Sandoval said he hopes the Board of Regents agrees to do some training regarding the open-meeting law and that it sets up a mechanism whereby regents can call his office with questions.

Rogers said increased communication will be a key component of any new procedures, and he has proposed reorganizing the system's legal team. The proposal, which must be approved by regents at their meeting in Reno next week, would demote Ray as the head general counsel and put in his place a chief counsel who would serve as the system's liaison with the attorney general's office and other public agencies.

Rogers said the new goal is openness.

"Most of this stuff is just common sense, it really is," Rogers said. "If you (the press or the public) call me for something, I am going to give it to you, unless there is a law that will send me to jail if I give it to you."

The agreement needs only the signatures of a majority of the 13 regents to be approved; a vote is not required, Rogers said.

Individual regents on Wednesday agreed that they wanted everything to be in the open, but they were split on whether they should sign the attorney general's proposed agreement.

The clause asking regents to dismiss their appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court on the Remington/Cummings matter irked some of the regents, including Doug Hill, Bret Whipple and Tom Kirkpatrick.

"Why should we drop that appeal?" asked Hill, adding he thinks the high court would vindicate the regents by overturning the judge's ruling. "I think that the attorney general is afraid of the appeal."

Hill, a lawyer in Reno, was also upset about a clause that will allow the attorney general's office to sue the board for contempt if the open-meeting law is broken again.

"I've seen a lot of silly settlement proposals, and that's one of them," Hill said.

"He's (the attorney general) asking for the moon," Hill continued. "He's asking for something that he could never get legally, that he could never get in court."

Whipple and Kirkpatrick said they were still reviewing the settlement but that dismissing the Remington/Cummings case also gave them pause. Both want the Nevada Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue.

"I believe we need clarification and guidance (from the Nevada high court) so that our board does not make the same mistake twice and so other boards can learn from it if we indeed made a mistake," Whipple said.

Regents Thalia Dondero, Mark Alden, Steve Sisolak and Linda Howard reiterated their desire to settle the attorney general's complaints and the Remington lawsuit, which is in negotiation. Remington sued the regents after his demotion.

Some of the other regents said they needed to review the proposal further before commenting, and the rest could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the current settlement agreement, Rogers said he is trying to get a majority of the board to sign off on a proposed settlement with Remington.

Several regents have said the board is still split along the same lines as it was in November -- the six who voted for Remington's removal have agreed to the settlement, and those who voted to demote him have refused.

"I hope all of the regents sign off on the Remington settlement so he can get on with his life," Howard, a Remington supporter, said.

"The regents need to get on to other business because our students are the ones suffering from it," Howard said.

In the end, both settlements will depend on whether Rogers can gather enough signatures.

"I've read it (the attorney general's proposal), but I don't think we'll have seven votes to approve it," Alden said. "I will certainly vote to approve it, I think it's OK, that it is the right thing to do. But I'm only one of 13."