AG standing guard for state open meet laws

Contrary to Karen Gray's July 11 commentary published in the Review-Journal, my office takes seriously the mandate to investigate and enforce any violation of the open meeting laws. In addition, as an educational outreach, my staff regularly conducts training on the open meeting laws for state and local boards and commissions.

After three years of enforcing these laws, however, I realized that since their codification in 1960, no one had ever reviewed them to determine their overall effectiveness.

Thus, in January I created an Open Meeting Law Working Group, which is open to the public, to determine if the statutes governing the open meeting laws and the enforcement of those statutes could be improved.

The members of the working group include individuals from the Nevada Press Association (including the Review-Journal), the ACLU, legislators, district attorneys, city attorneys, municipalities, counties and the public. Ms. Gray is aware of the working group and has attended the past two meetings as a public observer and participated during public comment.

As part of the wide-ranging discussions among the working group members, statistics from my office were provided to assist in the analysis of our open meeting laws. These "worksheets," as they were referred to in Ms. Gray's article, disclosed the disposition of 148 open meeting law complaints that were filed with my office between 2007 and 2009.

In 2007, 59 complaints were filed with my office and investigated. Of those 59 complaints, 15 were found to be violations of the open meeting law. Similarly, in 2008, of 40 complaints filed and investigated, 17 were violations. In 2009, of 49 complaints filed and investigated, 21 were found to be violations.

These statistics, the Open Meeting Law Manual and more information about the working group meetings can be found on my website: www.ag.state.nv.us.

When a violation is found, the attorney general has authority, under the law, to either sue the public body to void an action or to sue for injunctive relief to force compliance or prevent violations. The majority of the violations my office identified were resolved through settlement. This process is no different than any other civil case where the parties determine that settlement may be in their best interest to avoid expensive and time-consuming litigation. The same remedy results whether my office goes into court or achieves a settlement out of court.

Although litigation is not warranted where the public body readily agrees to correct its open meeting violation, there are times when violations require corrective action that only a court can provide.

In a recent case concerning the White Pine County Board of Commissioners, my office did not hesitate to file a complaint and take the offending parties to court. Despite a warning, a sub committee of the White Pine County Board of Commissioners met in private without statutory authority. My office filed a formal complaint in District Court seeking to void any action based on the private meeting and to enjoin them from engaging in the conduct in the future. This is an example of immediate enforcement of the open meeting law.

In her article, Ms. Gray refers to two specific open meeting law cases: one concerning the Henderson City Council and one with the Clark County Board of School Trustees.

First, the office of the attorney general has never received a complaint concerning any violations of the open meeting law by the Henderson City Council on the referenced June 15 date.

And second, contrary to her assertion, my office's analysis in the Clark County School District case did not grant an exception to the open meeting law, nor did it "nullify one of the law's central provisions."

The Legislature created an exception for confidential materials. The open meeting law shields confidential materials from disclosure to the public. The information requested by the complainant was confidential. The law does not require that confidential materials be provided to the public as supporting materials. My office determined that the material requested by the Review-Journal was confidential and thus not subject to disclosure under the open meeting law.

My approach to open meeting law enforcement has always been aggressive and professional, based on the facts found through our investigation process. I will continue this practice and, if the findings of my working group indicate laws should be changed, clarified or tightened, I will propose these suggestions during the next Legislative session in 2011.

Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, is Nevada's attorney general.