Askew has long line of obstacles

Jeff Schweers

Monday, June 8, 1998 | 10:07 a.m.

In his first 14 months as Clark County's manager, Dale Askew has had to fight unfavorable state legislation, reorganize local government to make it respond more quickly to commissioners' demands, and assemble his own administrative team.

To top it off, the County Commission to which he answers has been under unprecedented ethical scrutiny for 10 of those first 14 months -- leading Askew to appoint an ethics task force to create some guidelines on disclosure and abstention.

"It is more difficult to sit down with them and get their full attention," Askew said of the commissioners.

Talk about crisis management.

Considering that he was former County Manager Pat Shalmy's right-hand man for 12 years, one might think Askew would have been prepared for the task. But he readily admits the job has caused more headaches than even he had anticipated.

"It has been a surprise and, yes, there have been curves thrown at me," Askew said during a recent two-hour interview in the corner office on the sixth floor of the Clark County Government Center that he inherited from his old boss.

He's steered the county through a treacherous legislative session that could have cost it $56 million in revenue and taken away local planning and zoning control.

He's suffered outside criticism for letting go of several top-level administrators, including two assistant county managers, a human-resources director and a finance director. But he also has received praise for the people he's recruited to replace them.

And from time to time, he's had to reassure several county commissioners who wanted to fire him because he wasn't building parks and roads fast enough for their constituents.

"You'd think that after 12 years of being one door down, there would be no surprises," Askew said. "But until you're here, you don't realize the full depth and breadth of the job. It was much more than I'd realized."

Not that he's complaining. Askew, who is paid $125,000 a year, said he's up to the task of running the largest local government in Nevada, with a staff of 9,000 and a budget that tops $1 billion including all the non-general fund revenue and trusts.

Shalmy, currently executive director of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, had nothing but praise for his former assistant county manager in charge of operations.

"He's been around a long time and has handled some very tough issues for me, so it's not that tough issues are anything new to him," Shalmy said. "But obviously, as the manager, the buck stops with him."

Askew, who had left the county seven months earlier to work for Mercy Medical Services, was appointed by the County Commission in February 1997 after Shalmy announced he was resigning.

Some thought Shalmy's departure would hurt county government, especially with a tough legislative session ahead. Others thought it was long overdue -- that Shalmy was a political player who courted a majority of the commissioners he worked for behind the scenes in their political campaigns.

But Askew has proven himself a worthy successor, even if his management style and temperament are dramatically different from Shalmy's.

Askew is definitely more apolitical, and less visionary, than Shalmy. Askew is more interested in the nuts and bolts of government operations than he is in the big picture. And rather than promote his own vision for the county, Askew has been consistent since the start in putting first the policies and desires of the board that hired him.

"We have to make sure that our departmental direction, goal setting and business planning are in line with what the commission wants," Askew said.

The pressure to meet those demands can be high.

"There was a lot of pressure on two directors in particular," Askew said, referring to Public Works Director Marty Manning and Parks and Recreation Director Glenn Trowbridge.

So Askew reorganized those departments to eliminate some performance roadblocks. He created the Real Property Management Division to handle smaller capital projects, freeing up Manning and Trowbridge for the larger public- works and parks development.

Askew also reorganized several departments so that fewer staff directors and department heads were reporting to him directly.

Not everybody was happy with the changes. Of the nine managers in the Human Resources Department who were reclassified, two -- Terry Lamuraglia and Barbara King -- have filed personnel complaints claiming that Askew violated the merit personnel system.

"Terry and Barbara have a legitimate disagreement over how their reclassification was handled and are seeking another audience," Askew said.

To him, it's just one of the challenges of the job, like keeping up with the demands of a growing community. Or implementing a strategic plan. Or trying to conduct a verification of a recall petition during an election cycle.

"Every day is a new adventure," Askew said, "full of its own problems and new crises."