The Democrats who run the Legislature wanted no part of a bill last session that would have subjected lawmakers to the state’s open meeting and public records laws. But they did create the Nevada Public Records Task Force to recommend improvements to open records statutes.
The panel — five government workers and five transparency advocates, including Review-Journal attorney Ben Lipman — held its fifth meeting last week. The theme among the government employees was that complying with existing laws regarding public documents is a burden too difficult to bear.
For instance, Heather Han of the Nevada Transportation Department, complained that some requests are not concise. “Broad public records requests,” she told the committee, “significantly hamper an agency’s ability to respond in a timely manner to all records requests.” She said NDOT had not received more money or staff to deal with an increase in requests.
In the same vein, panelist Brittany L. Walker, city attorney for Boulder City, griped that the municipality lacks the resources to deal with requests. “We’re not allocating funding for responding to records requests,” she said. “And we have, as local governments, other obligations in state law and in our functions as agencies that we have to dedicate staff to.” Translation: It’s not a priority.
She suggested making those who seek records disclose the purpose of their request. An awful idea. What does it matter when the documents are public in the first place?
None of this should be surprising. Many of Nevada’s state and local government agencies — the Clark County School District and Clark County, in particular — have perfected duck and delay techniques when it comes to document requests. The default setting is often obfuscation rather than an acceptance that accountability is vital to a healthy democratic republic.
Are there vexatious requests? Of course. Just like there are repeat litigants who constantly return to court with their grievances. But the vast majority of records requests come from media groups, government watchdogs and concerned citizens seeking to check or identify government abuses. If public bodies are not “allocating funding” for “records requests,” the answer isn’t to make it more difficult to make such requests. It’s for the agency to prioritize serving the public by providing documents in a timely manner.
It’s worth remembering, as Mr. Lipman pointed out, “that taxpayers already pay for the staff and have already paid for the creation of the records and maintenance of the records and they are the public’s records.”
If the committee hopes to serve the citizens of Nevada, it will recommend legislation that strengthens state laws regarding public records and accountability. Anything less will be a disservice.
