Growth panel to retain moderator

Larry Henry

Tuesday, March 3, 1998 | 9:56 a.m.

Amy Dirks Stevens, a consultant guiding Southern Nevada's growth debate, received an overwhelming vote of confidence Monday, but that's not good enough for Sen. Richard Bryan.

On a 17-1 vote, the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority expressed its confidence in Stevens and agreed to retain her as moderator despite Bryan's recommendation last week that she be fired.

Bryan, D-Nev., has objected that Stevens' employer, San Diego-based Jason Associates Corp., has a federal contract to study a proposed nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Monday's vote of confidence doesn't change Bryan's opinion that Stevens should be fired, Bryan spokeswoman Karen Kirchgasser said.

"She should not be moderating the growth panel at the same time her company has a nuclear-waste contract," Kirchgasser said during a telephone interview after the vote.

Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates and environmentalist Jeff van Ee serve on the 21-member planning authority but missed Monday's meeting and didn't vote.

Bryan is not a member of the planning authority, but he said he became involved in this issue because of his longstanding opposition to the proposed nuclear-waste facility.

A large majority of Nevadans oppose the federal government's plan to store high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.

Bryan has said he is concerned that Stevens might try to persuade the planning authority to support the nuclear-waste facility.

Kirchgasser said Bryan also is worried that Congress, which hasn't finalized the Yucca Mountain site, might perceive that some Nevadans favor the project.

In addition, Bryan has objected that Stevens didn't disclose to the hiring subcommittee that Jason Associates has a Department of Energy contract at Yucca Mountain.

Last year, Jason Associates received a $238,129 contract to moderate the planning authority's meetings.

A year earlier, Jason Associates received a five-year, $20 million contract to conduct an environmental-impact study for the DOE at the proposed nuclear-waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the DOE's Wendy Dixon said.

At Monday's meeting, several planning authority members noted that Stevens has not discussed nuclear waste since she began moderating meetings in the fall.

"I have not observed one bit of intrusion or one attempt to influence policy," Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said.

Pat Shalmy, executive director of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, made the motion to retain Stevens, saying the planning authority needed "closure" on this issue so it could get on with business.

"We make the decisions about growth," Shalmy said. "She is not influencing how we vote."

The one dissenting voter, Neal Siniakin of Boulder City, said the nuclear-waste issue might come up during future meetings because the planning authority is expected to discuss transportation problems in Southern Nevada.

Nuclear waste would be transported to Yucca Mountain on trucks and trains.

Siniakin also complained that Stevens lacks planning experience.

He said the planning authority could save taxpayers $238,000 by choosing a moderator from its own ranks, such as Gibson or Terry Wright of the Nevada Development Authority.

Boulder City resident Ruth Johnson, who served on the four-person hiring subcommittee, said Stevens disclosed Jason Associates' affiliation with the DOE.

However, in an interview last month with the SUN, Stevens conceded she disclosed Jason Associates' DOE contract in Idaho, where she lives, but not in Nevada.

Insiders expected Stevens to be retained in part because gaming lobbyist Richard Bunker, who served on the hiring subcommittee, is said to be pleased with work Jason Associates has conducted on other Southern Nevada issues that could affect casinos.

Prior to the 1997 Legislature, Jason Associates, with a different moderator than Stevens, oversaw the citizens' panel that recommended a sales tax in lieu of higher casino taxes to pay for a second water pipe from Lake Mead to the Las Vegas Valley.

During Monday's meeting, Stevens seemed confident that she wouldn't be fired.

She was sent out of the room during the discussion about her contract, but when she came back in, she began addressing the next agenda item without asking whether she had been retained as moderator.