Thursday, Oct. 12, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.
A Clark County Planning Department manager has been tapped to lead the Health District's troubled Air Quality Division.
Dr. Donald Kwalick, the district's chief health officer, said he hired Christine Robinson to oversee the division's monitoring, enforcement, permitting and compliance functions. Robinson will continue to serve as the Planning Department's Environmental Division director through the end of the month, he said.
The Air Quality Division was rocked by an audit earlier this year that found administrative problems. The audit, performed by a state legislative subcommittee on Southern Nevada's air pollution problems, suggested merging functions of the county Planning Department with the Health District's Air Quality Division.
Robinson's "background in regional environmental planning and her experience in the county's Comprehensive Planning Department will help us reach an even higher level of communication and collaboration between the Health District and county air quality staff," Kwalick said Wednesday after announcing the appointment to the Clark County Health District staff.
Robinson has a decade of experience with the county agency, he noted. "She's a consensus builder and a good manager, and that's what we need," Kwalick said.
Robinson said she will focus on rebuilding morale at the embattled agency, which has received criticism for the handling of pollution control procedures in the 1990s and is part of a regional effort to respond to a federal mandate to clean up the air in the Las Vegas Valley.
"One of the first things I want to do is get over here and spend a lot of time with staff, one-on-one," Robinson said.
Building a better organization will demand input from throughout the agency, she said.
Robinson, whose efforts included oversight of plans to control fine dust and carbon monoxide pollution, said she also plans to work more closely with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"We've got some huge opportunities to deal with," she said. "We certainly have the attention of the public ... Air quality is of great concern to a lot of people.
"We have a very, very important job to do here, and we need to do it today," Robinson said.
The proposed reorganization of the county's air quality planning functions and the Health District's regulatory functions isn't something that she will focus on, Robinson said. Policy makers will decide that issue.
But Robinson said she intends to stay with the Air Quality Division.
Michael Naylor, the former Air Quality Division director, resigned in August. He said at the time that he will serve as a consultant to the division through June 2001.
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