Conduct public's business in public

We've never seen the side of Douglas County Superintendent Carol Lark described during last week's school board meeting.

That's not to say we haven't been on both her good and bad sides. But we've never worked for her, and therefore have no basis to know how she interacts with her staff.

But we do know what happened during her evaluation at last week's school board meeting. We know that the president of the school board withheld information about what was supposed to be a public process. We know that the rest of the school board voted to delay giving Lark a vote of confidence after hearing just some of what school district employees had to say.

School superintendents and county managers in Nevada are public officials under the law. That means their evaluations are held in public.

The Nevada Legislature decided that public officials' evaluations should be held in public because they are responsible for the operation of critical government services and the taxpayers have a right to hold them accountable.

The Legislature didn't add a clause to the law that says, "except when someone's feelings are going to get hurt," or "unless the trustees don't like what someone has to say."

Occasionally that's going to mean someone is going to be attacked in public. That's when the mettle of a public official will be tested.

The withholding of information in Lark's evaluation makes us wonder what was withheld at her previous evaluations.

We hope that the people who filled out two petitions dealing with the evaluation didn't think that they would be anonymous. Because a public evaluation means both sides are in the open.