AG warns Yucca board about open meeting law violations

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

Members of a board created to study the proposed rail line from Caliente to Yucca Mountain may have knowingly violated Nevada's open meeting laws when it closed its doors to local residents and media, according an attorney general's legal opinion released Monday.

In the opinion, Deputy Attorney General Neil Rombardo wrote that the Central Nevada Community Protection Working Group, which includes members of the Caliente City Council and the Nye, Esmeralda and Lincoln county commissions, fit the state's definition as a "public body" and, as such, was bound by open meeting laws.

The opinion comes in response to a complaint that was originally made in April by the Sun and joined by the Nevada Press Association.

The working group, which uses federal money for Yucca Mountain oversight, was formed earlier this year to allow the governments to cooperate in their dealings with the Energy Department. It came under fire in April after members allowed Pahrump residents Sally Devlin and Grant Hudlow to address the board when it met at the Pahrump Community Library, then asked them to leave.

Devlin and Hudlow are members of Citizen Alert, an anti-Yucca advocacy group. A reporter from the Pahrump Valley Times was also asked to leave.

The opinion states that "the pattern of deception, privacy, exclusion and non-disclosure by the members of the (working group) strongly suggests the level of intent necessary for a criminal violation of the Open Meeting Law."

The advisory opinion does not entail civil or criminal charges for the group's members because it was issued after the 120-day statute of limitations ran out, Rombardo said.

It does, however, include a proposed settlement agreement between the attorney general's office and the working group that requires the board reconsider all past items discussed in the private meetings. The agreement would bar the group from considering new items until the old ones had been revisited in public.

The group still needs to sign off on the deal.

"If they violate it again, that's when we consider whether to litigate," Rombardo said. "We do stand ready and willing to litigate this case."

Future complaints could effectively nullify each of the working group's decisions and could mean misdemeanor charges for its members, he said.

Lincoln County Commission Chairman Spencer Hafen, a working group member who in previous meetings has been designated a main contact between the counties and the Energy Department, said the working group will comply with the opinion.

"I can live with it," he said. "I have no problems with it. We'll carry on with the same goals in mind. We'll just have to make sure it's open to the public."

Hafen and other members had previously told the Sun they did not believe the meetings were subject to the law because the members does not represent a quorum and does not vote on policy.

He said he still does not think the closed meetings broke the open meeting law.

"I felt it was a working group," Hafen said. "It was just a group of people getting together to hammer out issues. I don't really feel there was anything wrong done, but if the attorney general says so we will open them up."

The proposed 318-mile rail line to Yucca Mountain has created a division between bustling Clark County and the rural counties that would be home to the railroad. Government officials in Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda counties have long touted the project as a potential boon for their flagging economies.

The Nye County Commission in July approved a resolution "constructively and energetically " supporting the development of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Kent Lauer, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, applauded the opinion, calling the members' defense "nonsense."

"Their excuse that they didn't have to obey the open meeting law because they were an informal group was nonsense," Lauer said. "They simply didn't want to conduct the public's business in public."

The open meeting law defines a public body as "any administrative, executive or legislative body of the state or a local government," which either spends or disburses taxpayer money or advises a government body that does.

A judge in 1987 ordered that meetings stay open unless there is a specific exemption in the law to allow the public body to hold a closed meeting.

Lincoln County Commissioner Tommy Rowe, a working group member, defended the decision to close the meetings, saying that open meetings would prevent members from having "a decent discussion" without being interrupted.

After the complaint was filed, Rowe said he urged working group members to post meeting agendas, although those meetings continued to exclude the public.

"The main reason is that they (the meetings) involve Yucca Mountain," Rowe said. "It's such a controversial issue that there are always the radical people. You couldn't have a decent discussion without people objecting to everything that's said."

Devlin praised the opinion but wished it had come sooner.

"I want open meetings, and I want accountability," she said. "The public doesn't know what's going on. There's too much secret stuff. There's all kinds of hanky panky going on."

Hafen, meanwhile, said he did not believe opening the meetings would drastically slow the process.

Future meetings, including one tentatively scheduled for early November in Lincoln County, will continue, he said.

"It will be a little more difficult," Hafen said. "But we'll just have to make sure everything is posted and timely. I think, overall, what we're trying to accomplish will still get done."