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June 11, 2004
Open meeting law complaints rise in stateBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The law mandates that the decisions and actions of public agencies be made openly and also define how the public should be advised of meetings. Thirty-seven complaints questioning whether the law is being followed have been filed with the attorney general's office so far this year, on pace to reach a total of about 90 by the end of the year, Keith Marcher, senior deputy attorney general, said. The total number of open-record law complaints for all of last year was 49, he added. Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the trend is `"very positive - it shows that people are concerned about open government.'' Sandoval also said the rise in cases shows the law needs clarification, and he plans to request a bill in the 2005 Legislature to do that, including new wording on what constitutes a public agency. "It begs the question, for example, if it's a nonprofit that receives public money, is it a public entity? This is a question that has to be resolved in the Legislature, not in the executive branch," Sandoval said. That question has been raised about the Economic Opportunity Board, the Las Vegas Valley's largest nonprofit with a $60 million budget - most of which is public money. The board has refused to abide by the state's open meetings and open records laws, and the result is that the public can't keep tabs on how millions of dollars of its money is being spent. Kent Lauer, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said tightening the law "wouldn't be necessary if board members would recognize the presumption of openness. "Some officials and their lawyers seem to have a cavalier attitude about the law and, more importantly, about the importance of open government," Lauer said, adding, "Secrecy has become almost an automatic reaction in controversial public issues that deserve an open and robust debate." |
