The Office of the Attorney General agreed with my concerns as a trustee of the Carson City School District that an agenda item for the district’s January 9, 2007 meeting was vague, too broad, and lacked specificity in violation of the Open Meeting Law (OML). I raised this issue before and during the January 9th meeting suggesting it be tabled and then voted against it when it wasn’t tabled. Ann Bednarski took these concerns to the AG’s office as a formal complaint the next day on January 10th. The response to the complaint was received by Bednarski on July 5, 2007.

Upon receiving the agenda for my first school board meeting in January as a newly elected trustee, agenda item # 6 “Adoption of policies and bylaws” seemed too vague to the point of being meaningless. I looked up the guidelines on the AG’s Web site regarding the OML and found indeed agenda items that are written with such a lack of specificity were a violation.

I wasn’t trying to play “gotcha” and sent the superintendent the AG’s guidelines and my concerns before the meeting so that it could be corrected. Needless to say it wasn’t corrected. When I raised the issue again at the board meeting, it was dismissed with a “that’s how we’ve always done it attitude,” and since I was new I didn’t know any better.

I did get a commitment from counsel that this issue would be corrected the next time it came up. The July 2 (written on that date, but received on July 5) AG letter states:

“The resolution agreed to by Trustee Enge and counsel for the Board was appropriate and it showed the public an exemplary degree of openness regarding Board business and a commendable cooperativeness between counsel and Trustee Enge which arrived at a solution to the problem.”

I do have a great deal of respect for the district’s counsel and don’t expect this issue will come up again. The AG letter supports my contentions and after citing the applicable statutes concludes:

“Applying the foregoing rules for use and preparation of agenda items, the Board’s use of ‘Adoption of policies and bylaws’ is far too generic and not reasonably calculated to inform the public of which policies and bylaws are to be considered.”

The AG letter further notes that their letter should serve as “guidelines” and there was not a formal violation because an agreement was reached at the meeting to correct future items and also because it took them more than the statutory 120 days to respond.

Ann Bednarski had a letter to the editor published Sunday about the matter and response from the Office of the Attorney General. You can read her letter by clicking here. Her letter is last among the many listed.

Joe Enge
Carson City School Board Trustee

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
Frank Zappa

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