Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003 | 10:56 a.m.
John Cummings said the reason he was removed as the lobbyist and adviser to the president of Community College of Southern Nevada can be summed up in five words: It's all about a woman.
In his first public appearance since filing suit against CCSN last week, Cummings on Monday talked about the Nov. 20 Board of Regents action that ousted him and President Ron Remington and about the flashpoint that started the controversy.
"On one side, it is very literary and very classical," Cummings said during a taping of "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable Channels 1 and 19. "On the other, it's as sordid as a daily soap opera. A woman was involved here. A woman who (Assemblyman) Wendell (Williams) said he was mentoring."
Topazia "Briget" Jones, who described herself as Williams' "special assistant" during the legislative session, filed a complaint after she was fired by CCSN. She worked for Cummings during much of the Legislature.
She was fired after the session for allegedly not doing a good job and failing to show up for work.
Cummings said Jones filed a complaint only after a promotion she asked for didn't go through. The complaint snowballed into an investigation of Jones' employment -- she was hired, fired and then reinstated. The regents used the investigation to oust Cummings.
"When we would not promote her without a proper search and without going through the proper channels, that's when Wendell came apart," Cummings said. "That's when she came apart and that's when we felt we were being extorted, both Ron Remington and myself. And when we said no, that's when our troubles began."
Jones was hired as a clerical trainee and sent to the Legislature to work on CCSN matters.
Chancellor Jane Nichols intervened and stopped Jones' termination, opting instead for a full investigation into Cummings' hiring practices and lobbying activities.
After the results of that investigation were revealed to the regents last month, they voted 7-6 to remove Remington and reassign him as a faculty member and 9-4 to direct a new interim president to remove Cummings as lobbyist, reassign him to the classroom and bar him from being promoted to an administrative level again.
Cummings told Ralston the results of the "preordained" investigative report were a farce that several people had a hand in.
"I think it was the system counsel," Cummings said. "I think it was the chancellor. I think it was some regents who get up every morning and think they see John Wayne in the mirror when what they really see is Barney Fife."
Cummings also pointed the finger at Nichols, saying her excuse that she thought Jones worked for the Legislative Counsel Bureau and was not aware that Jones was an employee at CCSN did not make sense.
"(The chancellor) interacted with Briget Jones," Cummings said. "There are telephone records showing Briget Jones calling the chancellor's office -- calling Kerry Romesburg (president of the Nevada State College). And let's say for a second that she really did think Briget Jones worked for the LCB, don't you think she would have turned around and asked her own daughter, 'Who's your new colleague?' since her daughter works for the LCB as well?"
Cummings said Monday that Williams asked him to hire Jones.
"I met with Wendell in a restaurant first with the current acting president of CCSN, Thomas Brown, and later she was brought to my office with Brown there, who helped facilitate her hiring." Cummings said.
Williams admitted in a previous appearance on Ralston's show that he arranged the meeting but "never advocated for her job."
After Jones was hired, Williams said, Nichols asked about her employment status but no one at the college got back to her.
"We found out later that John Cummings had her actually working undercover for the college, and she (the chancellor) was not aware of it, and I was not aware of it," Williams said.
Williams said Cummings hired Jones to work on legislation that would allow CCSN to offer baccalaureate degrees.
"Now, prior to the legislative session, he asked for this legislation and asked would I carry this legislation?" Williams said in his Oct. 10 interview with Ralston. "So Mr. Cummings said that he did not want his fingerprints on the Legislation. So what he did he had Miss Jones work on this legislation. He drafted the legislation. I still have it."
Williams added that he wanted to continue with the bill even after Cummings attempted to kill the bill.
The board ousted Cummings and Remington for alleged insubordination and for failing to adhere to university system policies. Regents said little beyond that.
The board's action, according to Cummings' lawyer, Frank Cremen, was illegal, and the two are seeking an injunction against CCSN to stop Cummings' removal.
"I don't think they have the authority ... to do what they did in the first place," Cremen told Ralston Monday.
Cremen is pursuing several other legal avenues to reverse last month's action. Aside from seeking an injunction, he is also trying to make the results of last month's vote null and void by showing that the board violated the law in failing to notify Cummings that administrative action was being taken against him, Cremen said.
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