Council review panel: Add 2 seats

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1999 | 10:38 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council accepted the recommendations of a citizens committee Monday without taking a stand on whether to follow the committee's most controversial advice -- a salary hike for council members and the mayor.

The Council Review Committee was formed last October to examine the composition, job status and compensation level of City Council.

In a final report to the City Council on Monday, committee Chairman Ron Portaro outlined the seven-member committee's findings. They include allowing council members to hold outside jobs; raising the amount council and the mayor are paid; adding two council seats if called for by voters.

"We are recommending that we take this to a vote of the people for adding two seats," Portaro said.

City Council agreed Monday that asking voters whether the four-member council needs to expand would be the right thing to do.

But the City Council was largely quiet on the committee's recommendation to set City Council salaries at 90 percent of what Clark County commissioners make.

If City Council approves such a rate hike, salaries for councilmen would increase from $36,900 to $48,600 and the salary for the mayor would rise from $48,527 to $63,163.

The salary hikes cannot take effect until after the next election for each seat. Therefore, if City Council were to approve the increase, the raise would only apply to council Wards 1 and 3 and to the mayor.

Councilmen Michael McDonald and Gary Reese and Mayor Jan Laverty Jones would have to win re-election to get the raise.

Councilman Arnie Adamsen said he would support a measure to raise council salaries, which were last raised in 1986

"It would not affect my pay raise until after the next election in 2001," Adamsen said.

Adding two seats -- with the recommended salary increase included -- would cost $573,240 annually. The addition of two seats would also lead to $170,000 in one-time costs related to the renovation of offices.

Jones was in California on Monday for a one-year medical check-up for her cancer treatment and did not attend the meeting.

Although the committee made its final report to City Council on Monday, it will not be disbanding immediately.

Instead, Portaro offered the committee's assistance until the ballot question is formulated -- sometime in March for the June general election.

In addition to Portaro, who is president of Total Quality Resources, the committee includes: Russ Dorn, a partner with Developers of Nevada; Bob Forbuss, chairman of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce; Leonard Goodall, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Kathy Ong, a partner of Hobbs, Ong and Associates; Fernando Romero, a manager for Mirage Resorts and Kenny Young, vice president of Strategic Solutions.

Councilman Larry Brown thanked the committee for its service on a "controversial issue."

State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, has said he will again introduce legislation mandating that the Las Vegas City Council expand to six seats plus the mayor.

Such an increase, Neal argues, will make it easier for ethnic minorities to get elected to what is now an all-white board.

"We are acting on what the people want," Brown said. "Sometimes that agenda has been lost in either a blatant or hidden agenda."