Legislative panel backs change to open-meeting law

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

State lawmakers backed two proposed bills on Tuesday that will give more rights to people who become the subjects of personnel inquiry.

An interim legislative committee voted unanimously that the open-meeting law should be changed to allow individuals to attend any governing board's personnel session that will discuss that person's character, alleged misconduct, professional competence or physical or mental health.

Lawmakers also voted unanimously that those individuals should have the right to decide whether the session will remain open or closed to the public.

The recommendations were a response to closed personnel sessions the university Board of Regents held in November during which they decided to demote Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and lobbyist John Cummings.

Lawmakers also voted to ask for legislation that would require the names of people to be discussed in closed session appear on the agenda and that they be noticed that administrative action be taken against them.

They also decided to seek a bill that would allow public boards to discuss an employee who may have a dual role in the Legislature, but that that discussion should be limited to their role as an employee.

Several community college officials and two members of the state Assembly were discussed during the November regents meeting during which Remington and Cummings were demoted, but only former Chancellor Jane Nichols was allowed into the closed session.

The move was legal under current state statute, lawmakers said, because the statute does not address who may attend closed personnel sessions. The law only mandates that individuals who will be discussed must be informed in writing.

The recommended bill draft would mandate that individuals under consideration be allowed to attend closed personnel sessions, and will allow the governing board's chairman to decide who else will be allowed to stay if the subject of the meeting decides to keep it closed.

Committee chairman Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, said he had no problem with "at-will" firings, as long as that person is given a chance to hear the reasons behind the administrative action and respond.

"You can fire a guy cause you don't like his tie," Hardy said. "But you have to bring him in and sit him down and say 'We don't like your tie."'

The other Assembly members and senators agreed.

Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, said that by not allowing a person into a closed session, the board also risked that the discussion would be leaked to a media outlet before the individual involved was told what was going on.

Both Remington and Cummings said they thought the bill draft recommendations were a good move by the lawmakers.

"Board of Regents' business should be conducted publicly," Remington said. "The regents are elected. If the public does not how they voted and why, how can the public assess whether or not the regents are doing their job?"

Cummings, who is now teaching a summer school world literature class, agreed, noting that the right to a trial is ingrained in democracy back to the days of Socrates in Ancient Greece.

"His (Socrates') trial might have been rigged but at least he had one," Cummings said.

The six lawmakers on the committee, led by Hardy, avoided criticizing the Board of Regents during Tuesday's meeting and instead focused on clarifying the ambiguities that arose during the Nevada attorney general's lawsuit against the board.

Lawyers for the Board of Regents still maintain that regents did not violate the state's open-meeting law and filed an appeal Monday challenging a district judge's decision that they broke the law by deliberating and forming a consensus in closed session.

At its next meeting the legislative committee plans to consider:

-- Whether the attorney general's office should serve as legal counsel for all public entities, including the Board of Regents, during their meetings.

-- What authority the attorney general's office has in interpreting and enforcing the open-meeting law.

-- The possibility of adding sanctions for those who violate the open-meeting law. Several lawmakers, in particular Sen. Barbara Cegavske, said the law needed "more teeth."

Some of her suggestions included requiring public figures to sign an oath on entering office to follow the open-meeting law and removing them from office if they intentionally violate the law. Cegavske also suggested assessing personal fines against public figures who violate the law and against the lawyers who were advising them at the time.