Ballot writers to be selected

Monday, July 15, 2002 | 10:03 a.m.

Tax question

Jeremy Aguero, Lee Gibson, Vicki Gonzales, Daniel Hyde, Leo Johnson

Joseph Hogan

Terry Graves, John Olive, Carole Vilardo

Jeffrey Thau

The Clark County Commission on Tuesday will choose which six people will write the ballot question for the proposed $2.7 billion transportation tax initiative.

The Regional Transportation Commission is asking for the tax package, which would include about $2 billion from a quarter-cent increase in the county's sales tax. The tax package would need to pass on the ballot this fall and in the Legislature next spring.

The commissioners will have to pick three people to write the argument for the initiative and three to write the opposing position. Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax will recommend the six.

Twelve people volunteered to write the question. Of those, just one said he opposes the issue.

Joseph Hogan, a Democrat, said he is not actually dead-set against spending $2.7 billion on roads and transit over the next 25 years. But what he does want is a guarantee that some of that money will go to women and minorities.

"My primary concern is that these projects are always built by white male workers, excluding women, blacks, Asians, etc.," he said. "It is worse here than in other parts of the country."

The difficulties of minorities and women to find jobs in construction contributes to the Las Vegas region's rapid population growth, because more men have to move here to fill those jobs, he said.

Hogan is a former regional director of the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance and president of Maryland's state Common Cause, a public interest group.

Carole Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, could also be tapped to write the opposing point of view. Vilardo, who worked on the tax initiative as part of a citizens committee, admits she does not oppose it, but she has experience treating such tax issues on the ballot objectively.

"I'm not opposed to the question, but I can write the opposition," Vilardo said.

For the last election, she helped draft arguments on Henderson's public safety tax package, the proposed children's hospital at UMC and a tax question for Las Vegas firefighters.

Most of those volunteering to help write the ballot question are on the "pro" side.

They include Lee Gibson, who retired this month as RTC assistant general manager and has worked for years on local transit and transportation issues; Jeremy Aguero, chairman of the working group for the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy and an analyst for a local economic research firm; and Daniel Hyde, manager of the city of Las Vegas' transportation services.

Whatever the committees write, Lomax said, he has a final say of what goes onto the ballot.

State law allows the election chief to throw out language that does not pertain to the question, for example. But Lomax said that was unlikely with three people on both committees.

"The whole intent of the law is to be sure the voters get an educated view on both sides of the issue," he said.