NV PUC Commissioner David Noble Calls Police, Claiming a Video Camera Was being Disruptive

LAS VEGAS - Oct. 27, 2015 - PRLog -- Another example of imperial government agencies attempting to suppress public participation surfaced on Monday, October 26th at a public hearing of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in its Las Vegas office.

The presiding commissioner, David Noble, denied the civil rights of a disabled senior member of the public, Angel De Fazio, by arbitrarily banning her from videotaping this public hearing and barring her from attendance at subsequent PUC meetings and hearings.

As a long-time attendee and activist for consumer input and representation at the PUC, De Fazio has videotaped numerous (in excess of 250) other PUC meetings and hearings over the last four years. Her portable camera routinely resides on a tripod at the side of the meeting room and disturbs neither individual attendees nor the proceedings. Her videotaping is a reasonable solution to an absent transcript, unless the PUC’s court reporter is paid hundreds of dollars for a paper copy. Only named parties in a particular docket are afforded complementary copies.

De Fazio suffers from toxic encephalopathy, a neurological malady to the many chemicals in personal care and cleaning products, pesticides and building materials that most Nevadans can endure without health side effects because of stronger immune systems. The PUC has been unable and unwilling to enforce its posted signage that in-person attendees at its meetings refrain from wearing chemical fragrances. De Fazio has been made physically sick when she spends significant amounts of time at the PUC offices between fragrances and unresolved mold problems in its so-called LEED-certified building. The PUC is unconcerned that people with disabilities are denied access to its public meetings and hearings, a double and illegal standard.

De Fazio's disability affects her short-term memory and prevents her from taking notes. Her requests for telephone participation at Commission meetings and hearings have been regularly denied by the PUC's General Counsel, Carolyn Tanner, although witnesses and Commissioners have been regularly allowed telephone participation…another double standard. The Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau without any reservations, allowed De Fazio to appear telephonically during their last session, even the Clark County Commission granted this reasonable accommodation.

Tanner and Noble have now conspired behind the scenes to claim that the PUC's routine 'contested hearings,' where two sides are arguing different claims, suddenly cannot be videotaped by the general public, but it is acceptable for the media to do so.

Noble stated that the media has to call him and get his ‘approval’ 24 hours in advance. So he has basically unilaterally decided who he will and not allow to video tape the hearings.

No public hearing was held about this sudden 'rule.' The Commission never voted to enact such an onerous rule and notice the public accordingly. This double standard has been concocted by Tanner and Noble to suppress De Fazio's presence and participation as a consistently concerted attempt to suppress general public knowledge of PUC policy misadventures.

Tanner further claims that the PUC's quasi-judicial status exempts it from the state open meeting law. What Tanner failed to acknowledge as she struggles to find some way of legally defending the PUC's deplorable actions is that virtually all PUC meetings are open to public attendance as a public body creating public policy. Tanner goes so far as to liken the PUC to the Nevada Supreme Court, a logically-flawed comparison given the enormous difference in operations and total absence of legal education and formal legal work experience characterizing some of the PUC's "judges."

What Tanner has forgotten is that these ‘meetings’ that she won’t allow to be video taped, are conveyed into a ‘proposed order’ to be discussed at an agenda meeting and voted on then. At these agenda meetings, the PUC allows the public to comment on the proposed order. How is a member of the public suppose to make an educated and coherent comment, when they try to suppress what the orders have been predicated on? These proposed orders are the PUC’s summary interpretation of filings etc.

De Fazio had been issued press credentials by The Vegas Voice, a Clark County publication, by its Political Editor, Rana Goodman. Noble intentionally lied to Metro

----CONTINUED AT: http://www.national-toxic-encephalopathy-foundation.org/w...