Open Meeting Law Violations Alleged in Sandoval Complaint Regarding University Board of Regents

This May Be Only The First Step In A Long Line Of Complaints

by Johnny Gunn

On Thursday, January 15, Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval filed a number of complaints alleging violation of Nevada’s Open Meeting Law against the University of Nevada System Board of Regents. The complaint was filed in District Court in Clark County. The court action stems from a number of complaints filed with the AG’s office following Board of Regents meetings in late November of last year.

This is not the first time complaints against the regents have been filed in regards to Nevada’s tough open meeting provisions. Along with the complaints, the Attorney General is asking the court to void any number of actions that were taken during the questioned meetings.

The vote to oust Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington was 7-6 to oust, and that vote took place November 20, 2003. At press time, the facts of the case are as mixed up as the politics on the Board of University Regents. Some say Remington was showing serious preferential treatment of ousted lobbyist John Cummings. Others say it was because Remington and Cummings were working secretly to make the community college a four year institution, and to get the college an extra half million dollars in state funding. And in the middle of it all is new-hire Topazia Jones, who appears to have also been working for disgraced Las Vegas assemblyman Wendell Williams as much as for the college.

Some of those questions will remain moot for the time being until the latest open meeting law challenge is heard in court. No court date has been filed as yet. According to Sandoval, “Placing these issues before the court will clarify our citizens’ ability to participate in open government.” Sandoval went on to say, “and will ensure the integrity of our public process.”

The court challenge should answer charges that many of the sessions in around and near the firings were conducted in secret, breaking the state’s open meeting law. At the base of everything is a long and apparently detailed investigation conducted by a private investigator at the behest of Chancellor Jane Nichols, an investigation that only the regents have had access to. Remington and Cummings were not invited to their firing, and Jones was given whistle blower status.

During the debate, CCSN employee and Nevada State Legislator Chris Giunchigliani had her job threatened as well but survived the attempt. Giunchigliani says the attempt was because of her legislative work. She has never voted a straight university ticket, so to speak, and she says this was one way the regents could get back at her.

Giunchigliani also has asked the attorney general for his opinion on whether the regents violated the state’s open meeting law. She specifically speaks to NRS 241.031 in a separate complaint complaining that her job as a legislator was discussed during this private meeting. However on closer examination, that particular part of the revised statutes does not include, in fact specifically says, the legislature is not included.

Giunchigliani believes the regents sought to punish her as a college employee for her work in the legislature.

Giunchigliani was among the few legislators who took leaves of absence from their public payroll positions to serve in Carson City during the last legislative session.

Some of the facts, as we know them

During a two day session late in November, the University System Board of Regents held closed door sessions to deal with Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN) President Ron Remington and college lobbyist John Cummings.

At the closed door session was the UCCSM Chancellor, Jane Nichols. Sandoval is asking the court to issue a judgment declaring that the regents violated several parts of the NRS. “The Board’s decision to allow Chancellor Nichols to participate in the closed meeting.” The complaint also finds fault with the Board’s decision to remove Remington immediately, and to have Chancellor Nichols take action to return him to academic duties.

Sandoval’s complaint also alleges the board violated the open meeting law by “a. deliberating and forming recommendations and a consensus during the course of a closed session; b. by considering, during the closed session, the character, alleged misconduct, professional competence, or physical or mental health of elected officials; and, c. not providing notice that administrative action might be taken against certain persons.” The complaint further claims there are violations of agenda requirements.

A 1,000 page plus report from Jeffrey Cohen, a private investigator hired by the regents, was used as justification to fire the two. Neither Remington nor Cummings were allowed to present their cases to the regents. The final vote to fire was 7-6.

Mixed up in the middle of all the other problems are questions of legislative funding of the university system; whether or not Remington was lobbying for extra money not asked for by the regents; whether or not Assemblyman Wendell Williams was working with Remington and Cummings to change the school to a four year college, unbeknownst to regents or anyone else in charge; and why a new hire clerical trainee making $21,000 annually was spending considerable time in Carson City during the legislative session, wearing apparel that indicated she was a personal assistant to Williams.

Sandoval did not attempt to look into those questions, but it is certain the next session of the state legislature will. Nevada Senator Randolph Townsend is chairman of the Legislative Commission which meets between sessions, and he expects lawmakers will be holding hearings on many of the issues, in particular those dealing with financing. He anticipates many if not all members of the board of regents will be called on to testify, and says he doesn’t believe these actions could be considered a witch hunt as some have indicated. Townsend has been quoted as saying, “we have a right to review.”

Some regents and others associated with CCSN have said the institution is a place where democratic lawmakers and their associates were given preferential treatment, including partisan hiring, and that these practices led to the firing of Remington and Cummings.

The private investigators full report ran to 1,026 pages and has not been made public to this point. State Assemblyman Bob Beers has said he believes jobs were handed out as political favors, and Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani’s name was mentioned in that regard. Giunchigliani is vice chair of the Assembly Ways and Mean Committee, often said to be the most powerful committee in the assembly.

Giunchigliani says it’s the regents who are trying to create the vision of political favors, “that the college is just hiring people on a whim,” to use her words.

Personalities abound in this hodge podge of politics, and in the final analysis, it will probably be the Nevada Supreme Court that will be called on to attempt to make some kind of sense to everything.

One member of the board of regents, Tom Kirkpatrick, asked that his particular transcript of the 1,000 page report from PI Cohen be released to the public. Kirkpatrick also suggested that other board members do the same. That hasn’t happened.

Because of the law suit filed by AG Sandoval, that long report could become part of the court transcript, thus become public.

In his transcript, Kirkpatrick details how $8.6 million was allocated to the university system by the legislature without the knowledge or consent of the board of regents. He said some college and university system officials acted on their own, that the regents were bypassed. Kirkpatrick estimates that about $1 million was allocated to CCSN.

Kirkpatrick believes that the rest of the board felt violated by this procedure, and Remington and Cummings felt the sting of that violation. System Chancellor Jane Nichols has said that about half of the million dollars authorized by the legislature was needed for capital projects and Kirkpatrick has replied that as a regent he had no idea the money was even needed or how it became a capital project without the regent’s knowledge.

Other regents, all named in the open meeting law complaint, Stavros Anthony, Mark Alden, Marcia Bandera, Jill Talbot Derby, Thalia Dondero, Douglas Hill, Linda Howard, Howard Rosenberg, Jack Schofield, Douglas Seastrand, Steve Sisolak, and Bret Whipple have not released information from the private investigator’s report.

One sidelight to the story pertains to salary increases awarded to lobbyist Cummings by Remington. Cummings was hired as an instructor at the college in August of 2000, but according to college figures, received five pay raises over a three year period bringing his salary to $115,313 as of January 1, 2004. All of the pay increases were authorized by Remington.

The major questions that need to be addressed in a public way include alleged violations of the open meeting law, and that will take place, in Clark County District Court, regents’ lack of knowledge of financial dealings between individual schools and the legislature, and whether politics is more of an influence when regents discuss personnel matters than the questions of what is best for Nevada’s university and college system.

Are people hired and fired because of their political stands and status? It appears as though the question should be asked by a legislative committee. Did the board of regents violate the Nevada Open Meeting law? It appears the attorney general has opened an investigation. The minutes of the closed door session that culminated in the firing of Remington and Cummings, certainly give the appearance of violation, and that is what Sandoval is alleging in his complaints.

According to those minutes, it appears that Assemblywoman and college employee Chris Giunchigliani was about to be fired because of her politics, because of her work as a legislator, and her stand on certain issues that weren’t to the liking of the regents.

One of those issues deals with whether the regents, currently elected, should be appointed. The legislature needs to take a serious look at this question if the board of regents is found lacking in any of the areas that have been discussed in this article.