Editorial: Not a place that needs a PR firm

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2002 | 8:24 a.m.

Last week the Sun reported that the Las Vegas Housing Authority in November had awarded an $84,000 public relations contract to Tribeca Media, a company run by former city of Las Vegas employee Lucie Melchert. Tribeca split the contract with Herrera Communications Group, a one-man public relations firm run by Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera. Housing Authority Executive Director Frederick Brown says the contract is necessary to smooth over relations with Las Vegas officials who have criticized the agency. But hiring a public relations firm is a waste of money: If there are problems with city officials, the board members and the executive director alone should try to resolve their differences, not bring in hired guns to do their jobs. The funds could have been better used elsewhere. On Tuesday Herrera wrote a letter to Brown, saying that he was willi ng to withdraw from the contract. In light of the controversy that's occurred, it's the right thing to do.

Brown, who was part of Herrera's exploratory committee for Congress, has come under criticism from board members who say they weren't aware of the public relations contract. They cite a policy instituted four years ago that specified that any contract over $25,000 required the board's approval. But Brown says last summer that the policy was amended so that the executive director has the authority to award contracts himself if it's part of a line item in a budget already approved by the board. We agree that the contract is unnecessary, but the board members have made a mistake as well if in fact they have relinquished their oversight role in approving contracts.

Meanwhile board member Dewain Steadman, on his own, is asking for an FBI investigation to see if there was a violation of the Hatch Act, the federal law that prohibits some employees of public agencies from engaging in partisan politics while in office. This isn't the first time that Steadman has gone down this road. In 1992 he asked the FBI to investigate Yvonne Atkinson Gates, then a candidate for County Commission, for receiving a low-interest home loan in 1981 from the Nevada Housing Division. Steadman, who twice before had lost to Gates in School Board races, admitted then that his charges were "definitely politically motivated." Nothing happened from Steadman's allegations, as Gates showed that she met the qualifications for the loan. None of this is to suggest that questions shouldn't be asked about the housing authority's public relations contract. Far from it. We just believe it's an important issue that shouldn't get sidetracked by election-year politics.