Southern Nevada housing authority broke open meeting law, AG says
The Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority has been cited by the state attorney general’s office for violating state open meeting law.
The authority announced at its board meeting Thursday the attorney general office’s findings after a yearlong investigation into whether the authority refused to release public documents.
The authority has refused to admit any wrongdoing and does not believe it violated the law, general counsel Theodore Parker said.
A resident filed two complaints with the attorney general in May 2021 and February 2022, alleging that the housing authority refused to share supporting documents of a subcommittee’s public meetings with him.
As a public body, the authority is obliged to follow state open meeting law, which states that all documents, minutes, agendas and other resources of meetings be made available to anyone upon request.
In response to the complaints, the attorney general’s office attempted to contact the authority three times — in May 2021, in September 2021 and a last time in March 2022 — but received no response each time. Parker said the authority never received the notices and was not aware of the complaints.
“The Office of Attorney General is not in possession of any evidence that the committees have complied with the Open Meetings Law,” the investigation report states.
The office did not seek a penalty in the investigation but did force the authority to acknowledge the investigation’s findings at its Thursday meeting.
This is not the first time the housing authority has been questioned about open meeting law.
In 2016, Parker asked then-Deputy Attorney General George Taylor in a letter if the board’s ad hoc and standing committees, which make recommendations to the board, were subject to the law. Taylor said he believed that they were subject to the law, however his opinion is not legally binding.
The attorney general office’s 2022 report claims that the subcommittees in question in the two recent complaints are subject to the open meeting law as well because the committees provide recommendations to the board.
The housing authority has submitted a letter to the attorney general in response to the investigation, Parker said, and is awaiting a final resolution.
Contact Nick Robertson at NRobertson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @NickRobertsonSU.
