Nevada Judicial Historical Society: March 2019 Minutes

Minutes of the 2019 Semi Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees

The Nevada Judicial Historical Society

Friday, March 22, 2019

Red’s 395 Grill

Carson City, Nevada

I. Call to Order – Peter J. Smith, Chairman

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Smith shortly after noon. Present were paid members Jeff Kintop, Chief Justice Mark Gibbons, Peter Smith, Jason Sowards, Jim Smith, Dennis Myers, Terri Rankin, Karen Baggett, Jannette Bloom, Susan Southwick, and Patricia Caffaretta. Also in attendance to report on an oral history was Victoria Mendoza.

II. Approval of Minutes of Annual Meeting of Board (September 21, 2018)

No comments or corrections for the minutes. Chief Justice Mark Gibbons moved to approve the minutes; Susan Southwick seconded. All in favor.

III. Treasurer’s Report – Jannette Bloom

Treasurers report current through December 31, 2018. Membership dues did not come in until 2019, when they would ordinarily come in in 2018. But overall, the Society still has more money than before with no expenses.
Motion to approve the Treasurer’s report was made by Dennis Myers; Terri Rankin seconded. All in favor.

IV. Medallions

Susan Southwick brought up the issue of the medallions, specifically regarding the inventory. Clint Case bought two complete sets last year, reflected income. And someone from Illinois bought two separate medallions. This issue was also brought up during the membership meeting in the fall.
Peter suggested we lower the sales price for the medallions until the price of silver increases. Chief Justice Gibbons purchased one of the 2003 medallions for $25 (down from the current price of $35). Peter calculated the inventory to be 349 medallions plus the complete set remaining (354 total).
Peter asked if anyone wanted to make a motion to lower the price of the medallions because they aren’t selling at all at the current price of $35. Susan said that it cost approximately $25 to make the medallions so we should not sell them below that cost; Peter agreed. Susan Southwick moved to change the sales price to $25 each for the medallions; Chief Justice Gibbons seconded; all in favor.
Peter then asked if anyone wanted to take on marketing the sale of the remaining medallions. The Legislature gift shot was suggested, but apparently this venue had been pursued before with a high commission and was generally a hassle to deal with. There was a suggestion to market to the new district court judges. Chief Justice Gibbons said he would look into giving the medallions as retirement gifts (where the funding would come from to do so).

V. Reports on Pending Matters

Victoria Menodoza told stories about her father. There was discussion about adding an introduction/foreword/addendum incorporating the stories/background she offered about her father that are not included in the oral history.
Victoria completed the editing of the oral history. The next step is to get those editorial changes into the transcript, then index, and then an introduction.
Discussion was made about getting data off a 3.5” floppy drive to a flash drive. Jannette Bloom agreed to incorporate the changes and create the index. Peter agreed to get the content from the floppy drive transferred to a usable format.
The transcripts came from UNLV. As such, they are joint owners on this oral history, so when the title page and introduction are completed, they will need to be given some form of attribution.
There was also discussion about Judge Mendoza memorabilia and where might be the best place to donate it.

Jannette Bloom reported on page count for all outstanding oral histories; Claiborne’s history is the only one that hasn’t been indexed because it’s in excess of 600 pages.
Peter Smith inquired about the “edition” information for the oral histories. Our books are known as the second edition; the transcripts are considered the first edition. Our versions are different because of reformatting, pagination, and indexing.
Jannette recommends reprinting the histories one more time as the page counts are as final as they are going to be (excluding Claiborne history). Karen Baggett moved to approve a second printing; Jeff Kintop seconded; all in favor.
Susan Southwick also recommended that for future oral histories, we pursue on-demand publishing so that we do not have an inventory of books.
Peter asked if this could be completed by September. Claiborne seems to be the only possible history that cannot be completed. The consensus is that September is a reasonable date to have the other histories completed.

An ongoing project. Peter inquired whether there remains a need to have a celebration for the exhibit. We still have CDs and brochures for the 10 Cases; Jeff Kintop recommended we get rid of our stock of these items as part of any celebration that is ultimately planned. The thought is that something would happen during the legislative session, probably May.
Jeff Kintop asked that it be placed in the minutes that he would actively work toward setting up an event for the 10 Cases exhibit. He said he would work with Peter Barton for more information. Peter Smith mentioned we have money to assist with any event.

Jeff Kintop asked that it be placed in the minutes that he would complete the edits of Judge Fondi’s oral history.
There was discussion as to whether the Fondi history would work better as an article or something else as it’s not consistent with the other oral histories.
Jeff Kintop inquired how much money we still have with the Ninth Circuit Judicial Historical Society. Whatever money we have has not been spent. Allegedly, Brad with the 9^th Circuit stated that transcriptionists would be available to help with histories.
Also discussed the priority for the next round of histories. One suggestion was Justice of the Peace John Tatro because a JP has never been the basis of a history and his history with a drug diversion program. Also suggested was Judge Bybee as author of “the torture memo.”

VI. New Business

VII. Adjournment

Nevada Judicial Historical Society