Councilwoman wins lawsuit against Boulder City

By Cassie Tomlin

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 | 2:32 p.m.

Employee opinion surveys Boulder City took last year have been declared public record and will be available at City Hall for review instead of locked in a safe at the municipal courthouse.

At an expedited hearing today in District Court in Las Vegas, Judge Timothy C. Williams ordered the original 96 surveys be made available for review and copying by Nov. 11, saying the benefit of transparency in government outweighs the speculative "chilling effect" releasing them might have.

City Attorney Dave Olsen said the records could be available in City Hall that afternoon.

Councilwoman Linda Strickland sued the city Oct. 23 to get original copies of the July 2007 surveys after being denied two public information requests. She also offered to look at the surveys alone at City Hall, and that request was denied, too.

She said she had wanted to read the city employee comments in their original context before a Nov. 17 review of City Manager Vicki Mayes.

City Council members had received a summary of the 100-question forms, which included all comments given on 40 of the surveys, said City Clerk Pam Malmstrom, who was also named in the lawsuit. Malmstrom said only two city employees, members of the Change Leadership Team, had seen the originals and compiled them in the summary.

Williams ruled against Olsen's claim that the surveys were non-records, noting they were administered and kept with taxpayer money.

Olsen had also called the surveys confidential, because the city had promised employees that their supervisors wouldn't see them. The surveys were anonymous and never signed by employees.

Strickland's lawyer, her husband Tracy Strickland, called Olsen's reason for keeping the surveys secret a "moving target," and said the promise of confidentiality was irrelevant, because anonymity would be preserved.

After the ruling, Linda Strickland said she didn't know when she would have time to look at the originals.

She said she trusted all of the comments were recorded, but said some of them may have been taken out of context. The comments were placed under headers that might not have been what the respondents intended, she said.

Mayes earlier this year authorized $25,000 for employee training and to boost morale.

Strickland said she was unsure that expenditure would fix the morale problems, and she wanted to know exactly what employees had written before Mayes' next annual review this month.

Strickland also asked the judge to have the city reimburse her for more than $4,000 in legal fees. Williams said he would need more time to review that.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].