LV City Council to review work card appeal procedure

Erin Neff

Friday, Jan. 21, 2000 | 11:20 a.m.

It took just two meetings before Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly threw up his hands in disgust and said he had seen enough.

For years Weekly sat in the audience as Councilman Gary Reese's ward liaison, groaning each time a person was asked to bare sordid details from the past just for the right to work.

"This is very humiliating," Weekly said Wednesday after a particularly personal airing of one woman's background during a work card appeal. "We're broadcasting live on TV. I'm just embarrassed having to sit here and listen to this."

Weekly asked the council to table the rest of the work card appeals until the board can discuss the way they handle such cases. That issue is slated for discussion Feb. 2.

"It's not right for us to hold folks down for making a mistake in their life," Weekly said Thursday. "I'd like to actually see the council make it in a manner to where people aren't held so publicly under a microscope."

Weekly suggests holding such appeals in a subcommittee meeting away from the glare of television lights and a live audience. He said people who are interested in the case could still come to the committee meeting.

The council is the last hope for many convicted criminals trying to get their lives back on the right track.

Women with prostitution arrests, men with past drug problems and the occasional paroled murderer or robber come to the council each meeting asking the board to overturn Metro Police's decision denying them a work card.

Metro Sgt. Vinny Cannito, who makes recommendations to the council about each case, often reports to the board that the person lied on their application or withheld information about specific arrests.

That very issue came to a head Wednesday when a woman asked the council to overturn Metro's decision denying her a right to work in the laundry room of the Aztec hotel-casino.

Her boss accompanied her to the meeting to support her efforts until he learned she had lied. When he learned she had been arrested four times and was fired from her last job, the boss reneged on his offer to hire her.

After that lengthy discussion, Weekly said he would not listen to any other appeals that day.

Mayor Oscar Goodman supported Weekly's move to table the work card appeals, but said Thursday he is not convinced the council should change the way they hear such cases.

"I think that there may be some disagreement on the council as to how that's going to be handled," Goodman said. "I personally like the idea of giving those folks with work card problems an appeal before us.

"I'm used to open courtroom proceedings and used to cameras in the courtroom. I think the public always has a right to know what's happening as far as governmental activities is concerned," he added.

Goodman said he thinks the city has already made progress treating the work card appeals with more flexibility.

"Some tremendous strides have been made," Goodman said. "When I came on board and Metro recommended denial, it was virtually an automatic denial."

But Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada, said he thought little progress has been made with the work card issue.

In fact, Peck said he is more concerned that the council come up with a policy for dealing with work cards in general, rather than a procedure for handling the appeals in a more private setting.

"I think the real questions are not questions about style. They are questions of substance," Peck said. "I feel similarly uncomfortable with the process, and I share Lawrence's concern about the way people are humiliated."

Peck argues a delicate balance must be met between keeping the matter open to the public and protecting certain private information. But ultimately he finds greater problems with the entire issue.

"We at the ACLU have said all along that we don't believe that the City Council should function as a court of law," Peck said. "It is completely against separation of powers."