New committee advising agency on blind vendors

Grace Leong

Monday, April 15, 2002 | 9:52 a.m.

Five blind vendors have been elected to a new committee that advises the state agency that helps blind people operate vending businesses at public locations.

The election was ordered after the state agency, which questioned the validity of a former advisory committee, won court approval to hold an election.

The state agency is the Bureau of Services to the Blind and Visually Impaired (SBV). It oversees vending stands including snack bars and cafeterias operated by 20 blind vendors in Carson City, Clark and Washoe counties.

The SBV, which refused to recognize the previous committee because it claims the election of its members was suspect, held an election on April 7 after a federal judge on April 4 overthrew the former committee's legal challenges to the SBV-proposed election. The election results were announced last week.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan denied the former committee's request to block the election and told its members to "use remedies available under federal law" to resolve their dispute with the SBV.

Maynard Yasmer, an administrator with the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, which manages the SBV, said the agency received 12 votes in total after a tally Thursday. The remaining eight vendors, including the five former committee members, abstained from voting.

The new members include three Las Vegas vendors, C.V. Johnson, Kae Pohe and Larry Wilson, as well as two Carson City-based operators, Nels Brown and Carol Wright.

Yasmer, who said the April 4 court ruling "validates" this election, said the new committee members will schedule a public meeting shortly where they will determine among themselves who will chair the committee.

But Jeffrey Whitehead, the former committee's attorney, said the committee believes the court "incorrectly concluded there was an adequate remedy under federal law" and is now considering various options including appealing the ruling or "waiting for another issue to emerge so they can establish a need for relief."

He said the former committee filed two grievances this month against the SBV alleging it overstepped its authority in proposing the April 7 election. He said the committee has filed up to 30 grievances since August 2001 over the SBV's management of the vendors.

"If the committee loses in the hearing, then its claims as to which committee is valid and who determines workings of the committee and whether the elections on April 7 are valid will go to arbitration," Whitehead said.