Metro braces for expunging of work cards

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

A civil rights attorney raised more questions about the Metro Police Department's use of work card records after Clark County commissioners discussed a plan Tuesday to begin purging the documents.

Commissioners have urged Metro to expunge the records since the Liquor and Gaming Board amended the ordinance requiring them, which critics had labeled antiquated. The law now only requires hotel-casino employees who have direct access to casino money to obtain the cards.

Records of hotel-casino employees such as maids, bellhops and bartenders are no longer needed.

Metro Deputy Chief Richard McKee, who described the complicated work card system, said Metro's records date to the 1960s -- a revelation that stunned ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein.

Lichtenstein said he thought Metro's policy requires work cards -- documents issued after criminal background checks have been conducted on employees working in privileged industries -- to be purged every 10 years.

"Why is that information still there?" Lichtenstein asked. "They're creating police files on law-abiding citizens. They are in there with murder investigations. There is no need for that."

McKee said the records are on the same microfilm as murder investigations and other documents that need to be stored indefinitely.

McKee told commissioners Tuesday that it would take 140 years of eight-hour business days to expunge all relevant work card documents. Board members said to do the easiest task first: delete records from a database known as SCOPE, which lists the work card information electronically.

Commissioners asked County Manager Thom Reilly to work with Metro to devise a plan to purge the records.

McKee said to delete all of the records, Metro employees would have to sift through each document, find the microfilm, snip the reports from the film and splice it back together.

The task would not only take years, but it would cost more than $5 million in time and salaries. Of more than 2.3 million work card records, police say half would have to be expunged under the county's recent ordinance.

The Las Vegas City Council is expected to decide today whether to amend its work card ordinance.

Commissioners who are convinced there is an easier method to erase microfilm reports -- such as blacking them out -- told Metro to at least begin with the computer records.

McKee agreed to discuss options on how to purge records, but added that Metro's policy is if it deletes records, it erases them completely. McKee suggested that until a system is developed, Metro purge work card records upon request of the cardholder.

Metro and the commission agreed that the electronic SCOPE records will be deleted first; the rest will be expunged when they are transferred from microfilm to a computerized record-keeping system in two years.

"Let's do the ones we can do easily and fastest and have a plan, time certain, to do the rest," Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said.