Open government

I’ll give ’em this. The Washoe County School District is getting better at recognizing when it is breaking the state’s open-meeting law. As reported in the Reno Gazette-Journal this morning by Trevon Milliard, one of the district’s subcommittees acted on a controversial health-care plan even though the meeting agenda was …

I guess you could call it standard operating procedure.  When there is bad news, announce it late Friday afternoon.  That’s in the playbook of every sleazy, dishonest flack in the PR universe.  So what does it say about the EPA that it ended its foot-dragging on records about the Animas …

I’ve never seen a debate quite like the scrum coming up Thursday evening on Fox News, but I’ve moderated and covered enough candidate forums to have an idea what to look for. 1. Who answers the question? Candidates typically want to stay ‘on message’ and have pat answers to topics, …

On Tuesday’s episode of Nevada Newsmakers, former university regent Howard Rosenberg was asked about recent criticism of Chancellor Dan Klaich. After a few comments in defense of the university chancellor, who has been under fire recently, Rosenberg turned to what he sees as the problem. “What really bothers me is …

… is the internet, of course.  OK, I’m going there. At the risk of being swallowed by the online universe and spit out the other end as a decrepit, hopelessly out of date, moldering relic of the newspaper past — all of which I am, by the way — I’m …

There’s more than meets the eye to this recent ruling by a federal judge that a police body-cam video in Las Vegas is, indeed, a public record. (Thanks to Vanessa  Spinazola at ACLU for bringing this ruling to my attention.) First, it’s good news to open-government advocates that the judge …

Now a judge knows what it’s like to try to pry records out of an uncooperative Nevada agency. I should say another judge, as U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen isn’t the first to confront the problem. We saw it in several rulings on the Reno Gazette-Journal’s lawsuit to get access …

I’m copying a story from the South Carolina Press Association’s newsletter this morning that traces The Post and Courier’s coverage of a video that exploded across the nation’s headlines. It touches on a number of issues, such as police body-cameras and victims’ rights, that are relevant in Nevada and nationwide. …

For police body-cam videos to do any good, they have to be seen by the public. That much seems obvious from the many examples floating around the internet, and the results seen by police departments that have started using them. https://youtu.be/HnOBfCmled8 But, as I’ve said before, there are plenty of …

I live in Carson City, which is neither urban nor rural. It is more than a town and less than a city. We have most of the conveniences of an urban area, but not a lot of choices. We can, of course, drive 20 minutes north to Reno. Or four …