A judge has ordered the Clark County, Nev., school board to turn over e-mails to a citizen watchdog who challenged its public-records policy in court.
In an order distributed last week, District Court Judge Susan Johnson ruled that e-mails created on public servers regarding public business fall within the state’s definition of a public record. Judge Johnson ruled the burden was on the Las Vegas-area school district to prove that individual e-mails are not public records before denying them to activist Karen Gray.
Ms. Gray filed a lawsuit in June 2007 seeking copies of board members’ e-mails from November 2005 to November 2006. Ms. Gray was concerned the members were violating the state’s open-meeting law by discussing school board business in private, said Lee Rowland, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which represented Ms. Gray.