Agenda includes removal of Kincaid-Chauncey as chairwoman

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 9:34 a.m.

Clark County will take the first formal steps today to remove Mary Kincaid-Chauncey as the chairwoman of the County Commission.

County Manager Thom Reilly said the agenda for the regular Nov. 18 commission meeting of the will have one of two items posted by the end of the day. One would simply accept Kincaid-Chauncey's resignation. The other would change the rules of procedure to allow the board to remove the chairwoman with a simple majority vote, a move that could come two weeks later if Kincaid-Chauncey does not resign.

Kincaid-Chauncey was indicted last week on 19 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and extortion by a public official stemming from a federal investigation of government influence by a Las Vegas strip-club owner.

Along with Kincaid-Chauncey, former Commissioners Dario Herrera and Lance Malone were indicted on similar charges. Former Commissioner Erin Kenny has agreed to plead guilty to charges, as has strip club owner Michael Galardi, the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe money, federal officials contend.

Kincaid-Chauncey was not immediately available for comment but has publicly vowed that she is innocent and will not step down from either her commission seat or the chair of the commission, a position to which she was elected by the board last January.

Her colleagues on the board, however, are concerned that the cloud of an ongoing criminal trial could interfere with the normal functioning of the board. The commissioners have declined public comment on Kincaid-Chauncey's fate.

"I've gotten pretty clear direction from the board to place one of these two items on the agenda," Reilly said Monday.

Reilly said he has not gotten a clear answer from Kincaid-Chauncey on which step would be necessary, but he indicated that the chairwoman may have softened her public stance.

"Maybe," he said. "I'm waiting to hear today."

Reilly said he does not know how many of the other six commissioners support a formal effort to remove Kincaid-Chauncey from her position, but other county sources said the six are united in their desire to see her step down but retain her commission seat.

Absent a resignation of the chair, Kincaid-Chauncey would face a commission vote Nov. 18 that would clearly and publicly spell out her fate.

The step would be to change the rules of the county so that a sitting commission chair could be replaced, County Manager Thom Reilly said.

"They first need to change the rules and procedures," Reilly said. "The rules right now don't allow for them to remove someone midterm."

An actual vote to replace her or simply remove her from the position could occur two weeks later, Dec. 2. Such a vote, unprecedented in Clark County history, would amount to a public censure of Kincaid-Chauncey.

However, Kincaid-Chauncey could look at the Nov. 18 vote to set up the replacement as a foreshadowing of the final outcome.

Mary Miller, Clark County counsel and assistant district attorney, said the Kincaid-Chauncey and the commission could avoid the scenario by voluntarily stepping down from her position as chairwoman.

"She would have that option," she said.

Absent an effort by commissioners to change the line of succession, Commissioner Chip Maxfield, now deputy chairman, would be next in line for the job.

The commission chairman has only one vote, but the position can have significant power. The chairman can set the rules of the road during debates. And the gavel-wielding chairman, occupying the central seat on the commission dais, also has a bully pulpit to represent the county.

Even as a commissioner alone, Kincaid-Chauncey would have the opportunity to consider issues affecting Galardi, the strip club owner who allegedly passed her money to influence her votes. Galardi now faces a Nov. 14 special hearing of the commission, acting as the Liquor and Gaming Board, that would take away his license to operate Jaguars, the club at the center of the Las Vegas scrutiny.

Miller, with the district attorney's office, hopes that Kincaid-Chauncey would voluntarily abstain from discussion or consideration of the licensing issue.

"I'm assuming she would abstain on the matter," Miller said.

Kincaid-Chauncey could have the opportunity to abstain on other issues. Miller said the county is considering another look at the rules governing lap dances at area strip clubs.

The rules, adopted last year by the county, were the source of considerable consternation by Galardi, who objected to the "no-touch" rule governing the popular erotic entertainment, according to transcripts of the federal wiretaps used in the indictment. His reputed cash contributions to the commissioners was motivated in part to an effort to weaken the rules pushed by Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, one of only three commissioners from the 1998-2000 board who has not been indicted in the probe.

Within a few weeks of adopting the no-touch rule in 2001, the rules were weakened and lap-dance touching is allowed in strip clubs in the county, although genital contact is still off-limits. Kincaid-Chauncey and Kenny both supported the weakened amendment to the rule.

The rule could come back in a stronger form, which would almost certainly incite another protest from dancers and civil libertarians on the issue.

"They are in the beginning of exploration in that area," Miller said.

However, Miller said Kincaid-Chauncey probably does not have to abstain on issues specifically affecting other strip clubs, including zoning issues that regular come before the board.

"I don't think that the fact that an indictment is pending means she can't vote anytime the subject comes up," she said.