Regents approve addition of two seats

Jennifer Knight

Friday, April 20, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

RENO -- What began for the Board of Regents as a King Solomon decision -- whether to drop one or two regents from the board through redistricting -- ended in a surprising move to add two more regents.

The recommendation came Thursday at the Board of Regents meeting here. The plan is to expand the state's higher education governing body from 11 to 13 members. The board voted 7-4 in favor of the plan after rejecting two other options to reduce the number of board members.

The expansion, which must be approved by the Legislature, would diminish the power of some regents, including Clark County representatives Steve Sisolak and Doug Seastrand. They would see their districts shrink.

"I don't know if there's any stomach in the Legislature to go to 13, so I support 10," Seastrand said.

Currently, some of the regents in Southern Nevada represent more people than a state senator does in the same region.

But by adding more regents, they must now divide the same area among more people.

Regents Mark Alden, Tom Kirkpatrick, Sisolak and Tom Weisner all voted against expanding the board.

Board members, like legislators, grapple with the issue of how to redraw district lines every 10 years after new population figures are released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Whille several board members expressed a desire to send a strong message to the Legislature by voting unanimously on the issue, the board could not unite enough to pull that off.

Ironically, the argument against having a larger board was that it would make it more difficult for the board to agree on issues.

Regent Jill Derby, however, said she felt that adding more regents would allow them to more easilty handle the heavy load required by the job.