Equal rights panel chief said absence was misinterpreted

Adrienne Packer

Thursday, May 24, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

The administrator of the Nevada Equal Rights Commission said Wednesday her failure to attend a federal agency's meeting to discuss the state agency was misinterpreted by U.S. Commission on Equal Rights officials.

David Sanchez, chairman of the Nevada Advisory Committee -- an arm of the U.S. Commission -- said Tuesday his board will begin a probe into the fact NERC hasn't forwarded a workplace discrimination case to the public hearing stage in more than a decade and reports that some cases take more than a year to resolve.

Sanchez said the decision to investigate came after NERC Administrator Lynda Parven failed to attend an advisory board meeting where NERC's problems were to be discussed.

Parven said Wednesday that she doesn't understand the need for an investigation.

"We are a public agency and our information is pretty much above board," Parven said. "We do have problems, and I hope things will be handled more quickly. Customer service is one of the areas I want to work on."

Parven was hired as an administrator three weeks ago. She said it was her ninth day on the job when she received a letter from the Nevada Advisory Board requesting information and statistics about NERC.

She said she was informed of the meeting just days before it took place.

"I didn't even know who they were," Parven, the former acting administrative services officer for the state Welfare Division, said of the advisory board. "I told them I would be happy to attend their next meeting if they gave me a little more notice."

Parven said she turned over as much information as she could in the time she was given and is willing to comply with any other requests.

Neither the Nevada Advisory Committee nor the U.S. Commission on Equal Rights has authority over Parven's division. However, Sanchez said, typically recommendations the U.S. Commission makes to states are followed.