Minutes ruckusmay cost county

The Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer's Office and some planning commissioners are at odds over what constitutes adequate minutes for the group's meetings.

The debate came to light during the hearing over Max Baer's "Beverly Hillbillies" casino when planning commissioner Margaret Pross asked that the minutes reflect all the board members' comments before they were forwarded to the board of commissioners.

She was told at the meeting that those comments would be reflected in the subsequent record of the meeting. They weren't.

Part of the problem is that the Planning Commission's debate on the merits of the project was split between two meetings. Pross said many of the findings made by planning commissioners when they denied variances on the project were also not included.

That's important because those findings are the basis for the project's appeal to the county commission.

When the minutes came up for approval at a subsequent meeting, planning commissioners rejected them, saying they were incomplete.

Deputy District Attorney Cynthea Gregory issued an opinion saying that if they were revised to include the members who are present and absent, they complied with Nevada law.

The state law she cited says the minutes should include any other information which any member of the public body request to be included or reflected in the minutes.

In an Aug. 22 memo to the planning commission Gregory said the Nevada Attorney General has interpreted that to mean any commissioner may submit a written document that may be included in the minutes. The attorney general is in charge of enforcing the open meeting law and often offers opinions on what the law means. However, it is up to a judge to determine if the state's opinion is correct.

Pross said she never wanted verbatim minutes, she just wanted them to reflect what planning commissioners had to say.

But we disagree with Gregory that if Pross had asked for verbatim minutes they wouldn't have to have been included under the statute.

A plain reading of the law Gregory cited raises the expectation by a member of a public body that if they request their comments be included in the minutes that they will be.

That expectation is where this debate started and it will be where it ends.