More than 18 months after four residents filed a lawsuit to obtain public records from four Douglas County School Board trustees, it is important to look back over this Sunshine Week to explore this private experiment in enforcing Nevada’s Public Records law.
In Nevada, anyone may request public records of any public official for any reason.
However, like a game of Go Fish!, the records law relies on the keeper of the records to determine whether they are indeed public.
A requester who has been denied has a choice. Either accept the decision or sue.
In August 2023, four plaintiffs in Miller v. Douglas County School District chose the latter path in anticipation of the possibility that the trustees were withholding information on their personal devices related to their elected and very public office.
To be clear, those records don’t belong to the trustees. By state law they rightfully belong to the people of Douglas County.
After a poor showing in court the following spring, the four trustees sought a settlement.
That’s where the case takes a turn, because since all four of the trustees would personally benefit from the settlement, none of them were allowed to vote on it by Nevada’s ethics law.
That apparently didn’t stop the trustees, who served as a majority of the board at the time, from voting to have taxpayers foot the bill for their legal representation and to remove a contract clause that would have held them responsible for those costs, should they lose the lawsuit, which they did.
We’ve published District Judge Tom Gregory’s ruling that found the school district was liable for $166,081.16 in legal fees with $70,000 of that ordered to be paid joint and severally by the four trustees.
Who and how that judgment will be paid is still up in the air, and might even be appealed, though that just seems like a way to cost the taxpayers even more money.
Trustees David Burns, Susan Jansen and Katherine Dickerson met a March 15 deadline to agree to comply with the state’s ethics law, which makes them ineligible to vote on whether they will be held accountable for their part in refusing to turn over records.
There have been some calls for the Nevada Legislature to rein in the state’s open records rules, but we would suggest that it’s the elected officials who think they can get around voters who need reining in.
Each elected official swears an oath to uphold the laws of the state of Nevada. Those laws include conducting the public’s business in public.
We expect nothing less of those who seek to serve us at any level of government.