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The Nevada League of Cities and Municipalities has doubled down on its attempt to make public records more expensive and less accessible in an amendment proposed Wednesday during the first hearing on SB28.
As I described earlier, the bill attempts to change fundamentally Nevada’s public records law by greatly expanding the definition of ‘actual costs’ of providing a copy of a public record.
With the amendment, though, the League would like to charge you a fee merely to ‘inspect’ a public document.
Think about that for a second. Would I have to take my credit card with me to read Carson City’s budget at City Hall? Because under this amendment, they could charge me 25 cents a page just to look at it.
Columnist Steve Sebelius pointed out today that the director of the Nevada League of Cities tried unsuccessfully to make a joke of the issue.
For my part, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The bill would make a mockery of the state’s open-records law. I don’t take that lightly, nor should you. It truly is the worst bill in the 2015 session.
There are serious issues here, as demonstrated in a lawsuit going on now between the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Clark County DA’s office.
Let’s be clear. There’s only one motive here for jacking up the fees for public records: Make it difficult, if not impossible, for ordinary people to see what their government does.
Reblogged this on Nevada State Personnel Watch.