Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.
A number of loose ends linger after the state Board of Regents' removal of two CCSN administrators -- including an opinion from the attorney general that could change the decision.
After a failed attempt last week to overturn the Nov. 20 decision to remove Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and his adviser and lobbyist John Cummings, the two still have other options.
Litigation is being considered by Cummings and Remington, several regents are still demanding answers about how the investigation was conducted and the attorney general's office is poised to issue an opinion on whether regents violated the law.
Legal challenges are also being discussed by the administrators, including a question of whether the meeting was improperly noticed.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval said he has made it a priority to sift through five open-meeting law complaints filed against the Board of Regents. Three of those complaints hold the potential of overturning the removal of Remington and Cummings.
Tom Sargent, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said Tuesday that an opinion is expected soon.
"I would look for it before the end of the year," Sargent said. "It seems like we've got our arms around it now. When we were first started looking at the 1,000-page report and the 19 hours of tapes, it was a little more difficult to assess how long it would take to get through it. But it's getting close."
Two complaints that relate directly to the Nov. 20 meeting have to do with a 9-4 vote taken in closed session to keep Chancellor Jane Nichols in the meeting, even though she was part of the investigation.
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, a CCSN spokeswoman, also filed a complaint maintaining that because a legislator must be discussed in open session, regents violated the law when they discussed her.
If Sandoval finds regents broke the law, the decisions made during that meeting could be void, Sargent said. It could also mean harsh penalties for the board because of its prior history of violations. Regents were cited in 2000 for failing to adequately describe an item on the agenda. In May of this year, the state Supreme Court upheld that decision.
Remington has asked for a transcript of the 17-hour hearing. The university system has declined, saying that judge's order for a transcript of the hearing only includes transcripts of the minutes of the meetings. The university system is asking for the judge to clarify her order.
The CCSN investigation was prompted by a complaint by Topazia "Briget" Jones, a clerical trainee at CCSN, alleging improper hiring and lobbying practices at the college. After filing the complaint Jones said there was an attempt to fire her before Nichols intervened.
Several regents have questioned the handling of the investigation and more recently Regent Howard Rosenberg has asked Nichols to tell him why key information in the report was not presented during the closed session.
"(The report) was read to us," said Rosenberg, who voted against the ousters. "Sections were read to us. It all went toward something that someone had decided that this is what we were going to do."
Rosenberg said regents never heard about the investigation that CCSN Human Resource Associate Vice President Thomas Peacock conducted on Jones' degree.
"It appears to me that Dr. Peacock's report provides ample reason to terminate Topazia 'Briget' Jones as a probationary employee," Rosenberg said in a Dec. 10 memo to Nichols.
Rosenberg also said the investigator, Jeffrey Cohen, failed to inform regents that allegations in the report were made by former CCSN employee Larry Braxton, who is a convicted felon.
Regent Linda Howard, who voted against the ouster of the administrators, said that all of the gaffs made by the board in the past month have prompted several key people to consider an attempt to recall some of the regents.
"I've had not only students but faculty and donors who have contributed money to institutions have all mentioned to me that they are interested in doing the recall," Howard said.
Howard said she wouldn't be coordinating any recall efforts.
"It's just people have expressed their concerns to me," she said. "I'm not involved with it."
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