Action taken on four open meeting bills

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A bill sought by Attorney General Brian Sandoval to increase the penalty for violation of the open meeting law was killed Monday by the Senate Committee on Government Affairs.

But the committee approved three other bills dealing with open meetings.

The committee, with Las Vegas Democrats Dina Titus and Terry Care dissenting, voted down Senate Bill 416 that would have allowed $5,000 fines to be leveled against any government body that repeatedly violated the open meeting law.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Neil Rombardo told the committee "There are cases where a public body refuses to comply. This is the teeth to give the public body to comply."

The measure would have allowed a court to impose the penalty if the public body had violations within a two-year period.

Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, the committee chairman, questioned transferring money from one public body to another.

The bill also would have also awarded the attorney general court costs and attorney fees if it won a lawsuit about a violation of the law. Senators asked why the attorney general should get the court costs and attorney fees when that wasn't available to the other side if it won.

Rombardo agreed to change that section to allow court costs and attorney fees for the side that prevailed in court. But the committee decided against processing the measure.

The committee voted unanimously for Senate Bill 83 to require all public bodies to allow a person who is subject of a closed personnel session to appear and offer testimony to rebut the allegations.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, originally applied only to the board of regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada. But the committee agreed to extend this to all public bodies.

Hardy called this, "pretty good public policy."

This bill was the outgrowth of the meeting of the board of regents on the cases of Ron Remington and John Cummings. As a result of that meeting, Remington was demoted from his position as president of the Community College of Southern Nevada and Cummings was transferred back to staff from his position as lobbyist for the college.

The two men were not at the closed meeting in which the regents discussed their character.

The committee also approved Senate Bill 415, which had been sought by the attorney general to clarify the law that public bodies can hold closed meetings when grading examination papers. It allows the meeting to be closed if a person appeals his grade.

But the public body must conduct an open meeting when deciding on the appeal. Care voted against the bill.

By a unanimous vote, the committee also approved another bill that had been sought by the attorney general -- Senate Bill 421, which requires audio recordings of public meetings.

Rombardo said there are inadequate written minutes sometimes on which to make a decision as to whether there has been a violation of the open meeting law. The bill was amended to make sure there would be no prosecution if there was a malfunction of the audio equipment through no fault of the public body.

And the audio recording mandate does not apply to government groups with no funds. A verified transcript of the meeting would eliminate the requirement for an audio recording.

Another bill by Sandoval to give the attorney general subpoena power in cases where the open-meeting law may have been violated appears to be in trouble.

The committee put off a vote until Wednesday on Senate Bill 6.

SB6 would grant the attorney general subpoena power to require the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of documents to enforce the open-meeting law. If the person refused, the attorney general could to go court for an order to force the person to comply

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said the bill "makes me nervous." He said that subpoenas should only be issued by a court, otherwise the subpoena power is left open to abuse.

Rombardo said sometimes government bodies ignore the requests of the attorney general's office when it investigating complaints of violations. For instance, he said a public body, which he did not identify, has twice refused to comply with a request for more information.

People who work in the agency refuse to cooperate because their boss may be involved in the matter that the attorney general's office is trying to investigate, Rombardo said.

Raggio said district attorneys would like subpoena power too, but "it's an invasion. I'm not convinced it rises to the level to give the DA or the AG" this power.