Sunday, May 31, 2009
Seriously, What's So Hard About This?
The Open Meeting Law (Chapter 241 of the Nevada Revised Statutes) is not a hard law to follow. The law itself is only six printed pages long. The Nevada Attorney General has published a manual to assist public bodies in complying with the law, setting out best practices to follow. This is not a very complicated law.
So why is it that the ASUN Senate, seemingly at every turn, manages to engage in practices that are of questionable legality with respect to this law? Keep reading...
Facilities Must Be Reasonably Large
The Open Meeting Law informs us that "all meetings of public bodies must be open and public, and all persons must be permitted to attend any meeting of these public bodies" (NRS 241.020(1)). What exactly does it mean that meetings be "open and public" and that "all persons must be permitted to attend any meeting"?
Well, the Attorney General has discussed this in her office's manual. At section 8.03, the Attorney General advises, "Public meetings should be held in facilities that are reasonably large enough to accommodate attendance by members of the public." In an Attorney General's Open Meeting Law Opinion, the Attorney General wroteA public body's failure to conduct an open meeting in a large enough facility, in effect, creates an improperly closed meeting. See Open Meeting Laws 2d, A. Schwing, § 5.76, at 231 (2000). Therefore, it is the legal duty of a public body to attempt to provide meeting space sufficient to accommodate the expected number of attendees including, under certain circumstances the anticipated heightened emotions of a larger number of attendees.
(OMLO 2005-14).
The ASUN Senate is scheduled to hold a meeting on June 3, 2009, in room 404 in the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. A review of the facility shows that the room has a capacity of 18 persons (link). This poses a couple of problems:
A room with a capacity not even large enough for all of the members and staff of a public body cannot possibly be "reasonably large enough to accommodate attendance by members of the public" because it isn't even large enough to accommodate attendance by members of the public body itself.
This meeting takes the place of the last meeting that was canceled because we pointed out that the notice and agenda for the meeting was not posted in time to take into account the Memorial Day holiday during the posting period. The meeting was canceled as the appropriate corrective response to that deficiency.
This meeting, too, should be canceled because the facilities are not reasonably large enough to accommodate members of the public. The Senate Chamber is adequate, but the reason the Knowledge Center was selected is probably because the Student Union closes at 7 p.m. (It should be noted that the Knowledge Center only stays open for an additional hour. The Student Union, however, is open until midnight on Tuesdays.)
Rooms Must Remain Unlocked During Meeting
Another meeting scheduled could pose a different problem related to facilities. An Oversight Committee meeting is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. on June 3. The meeting will be held in room 206 of the Ansari Business Building. Holding after-hours meetings usually is not a problem during the school year because the Student Union is open late. During the summer, it's a different story.
Has the Committee made arrangements to ensure that there will be public access to ABB after-hours for the duration of the meeting? Meetings have been held in the Business Building during the summer before, but often the exterior doors were locked and the access to the building nearest the meeting room had to be propped open with a chair. The State Attorney General advises that "If a citizen is denied access to a meeting because of [locked] doors, a violation of Nevada's open meeting law would occur."
Accordingly, if the exterior doors to the Business Building do not remain unlocked, and if there are not directions to an unlocked access door to the building on the locked doors, the public would be denied access to the meeting location. A violation has not occurred yet, but the potential for a violation is ripe.
A Related Note...
On a related note, this blog has been criticized of late for unreasonably attacking the Senate as a whole for the alleged violations of a few individuals, namely the Speaker of the Senate, Gracie Geremia. Our rejoinder: of course the whole Senate should be criticized. The Speaker is merely an officer of the Senate; she is responsible to the body as a whole. Her mistakes are the body's mistakes.
This is not the first alleged violation of the Open Meeting Law that has occurred during this session. This is the second meeting in a row where a deficiency has been pointed out before the meeting has occurred (link). One meeting was held this session in violation of the law (link). Almost half a dozen cases have been filed against the Senate for violating the Open Meeting Law.
This is not a new theme, as the following Sagebrush articles demonstrate:
Senators have been censured for violating the Open Meeting Law. Vice Presidents have been forced to resign amid impeachment over Open Meeting Law violations. Meetings have been canceled because of Open Meeting Law violations. This law is not hard to follow, provided the officers charged with following it make the effort to do so.
Last session, Speaker Priscilla Acosta, was made an example of because of the violation of the Open Meeting Law she committed. One violation led to that. Ms. Geremia is already up to at least four violations. Will this Senate hold her accountable? Even if they don't, will Geremia make a concerted effort to become an expert on the Open Meeting Law and learn from her frequent mistakes? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, the Senate meeting should be canceled yet again, and the student's business hijacked yet again, because one individual fails to do her job and to do it well.
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