Two strikes against open government

The Nevada Supreme Court, which had seemed to be on a pretty good roll, recently had two chances to further the openness of state government. Unfortunately, it got them both wrong.

The first case had to do with open records on property acquisition for the Reno railroad trench. The Reno Gazette-Journal had gone to court to allow the public access to documents specifying how Reno intends to go about buying $18 million worth of land from 32 owners and make deals to relocate 52 businesses.

Washoe District Judge Jerry Polaha had ruled the documents should be open. But the Supreme Court, on a 5-1 vote, used some quite flexible logic to determine the city can keep the agreements secret.

The lone dissenter was Justice Mark Gibbons, who saw that Nevada presumes public records are open unless they are specifically declared confidential. There is plenty of room for argument on both sides of the legal technicalities, which is why Gibbons got it right when he wrote that "informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment."

Gibbons, like Justice Cliff Young last year in an initiative-petition dissent, noted the enormity of the $280 million trench project and effect on taxpayers. So Reno residents have now been told they can neither question the project nor have full disclosure. Both rulings will come back to haunt Northern Nevada, we predict.

A second recent Supreme Court ruling, also involving Reno, said back-to-back sessions by less than a quorum of a public board aren't in violation of open-meeting laws.

In other words, it was OK for two members of the Reno Redevelopment Agency to meet in secret to learn about plans for the now-demolished Mapes Hotel, followed closely by a secret meeting of three more members of the agency board.

This time, the court unanimously overturned Washoe District Judge James Hardesty, who had enjoined the redevelopment agency from meeting in private to discuss controversial issues.

This is one of those "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" issues. Anyone can see from the circumstances the agency was simply trying to avoid its responsibility to discuss the Mapes Hotel's future in public. Frankly, it was a duck.

In both cases, no public benefit is derived from concealing the government's work from taxpayers. Indeed, the overriding motive for secrecy is to prevent voters and taxpayers from learning details they might question or oppose.

With its rulings, the Supreme Court has provided two blueprints for how Nevada governments in the future can hide what they're afraid to let us know.