LV City Council must OK firings by manager

Sito Negron

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003 | 10:51 a.m.

Las Vegas City Council has a number of policy issues to consider at its special meeting today, but it ultimately may end up deciding a more direct issue -- whether to fire Sharon Segerblom and Assemblyman Wendell Williams.

Although Mayor Oscar Goodman has said that such personnel issues as whether to fire someone are up to the city manager, the city charter apparently requires that council ratify the decision when it involves an appointive employee, the category that includes Williams and Segerblom.

It's unclear whether the issue will come before council at today's 2:30 p.m. meeting. The agenda items are broad: to discuss and possibly take action on the audit, and on the service of city employees in the Legislature, "and other matters pertaining thereto."

Goodman was not available for comment on the issue Monday or this morning.

Laura Fitzsimmons, who is Segerblom's lawyer, urged the council to do more than simply go along with a recommendation by the city manager's office, if one were to come.

"There were not adequate policies -- formal or informal -- to deal with high-ranking legislative employees," Fitzsimmons said. "If the council simply ratified Ms. Segerblom's termination, the emerging public perception that she is being used as a scapegoat will be reaffirmed."

From the policies to the personnel issues, the city is grappling with what to do about an auditor's report that found Williams and his former Neighborhood Services Department co-worker Morse Arberry, also a Democratic assemblyman, used sick leave to supplement their pay during the 2001 Legislature.

The audit also determined that Segerblom favored the legislators, and failed to properly supervise them.

Council members have said they expected today's discussion to be wide-ranging, involving such policy issues as whether city employees should be lawmakers in other governmental bodies to such specific issues as what policies and procedures the city manager's office used in dealing with the whole situation.

"I think the audit is a major first step that's going to (lead to) a host of additional questions that need to be answered," said Ward 4 Councilman Larry Brown in an interview last week.

Williams is expected to speak on his own behalf at the meeting, said his lawyer, Larry Semenza. Segerblom likely will not be there, Fitzsimmons said.

The lawyers for Segerblom and Williams said last week they were told their clients had been offered the chance to resign or be fired. City officials said then that they had not made a decision yet, and were trying to meet with Segerblom and Williams.

City officials have stopped discussing the investigation, citing likely litigation. Richard Segerblom, Sharon's husband, is a lawyer who specializes in wrongful termination cases. He has filed an ethics complaint alleging that Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell and City Manager Doug Selby have conflicts of interest.

Richard Segerblom and Fitzsimmons said the city manager's office immediately should have turned the issue over to a different investigative entity.

Fretwell owns a home with Christine Robinson, who is Selby's wife's boss at the Clark County air quality program.

"Mr. Selby benefits financially from having his wife employed by Ms. Robinson. Ms. Robinson benefits financially from having her life partner employed by Mr. Selby," wrote Richard Segerblom in his complaint to the state Commission on Ethics last week.

Fitzsimmons said the city manager's office wanted Segerblom and Williams to resign before the issues came before City Council, because otherwise the hearing would "provide an opportunity for discussion of who truly is responsible for this mess."

Fitzsimmons said there was an informal policy that legislators working for the city could claim eight hours per pay period when the Legislature was in session, so they could keep their benefits.

"In other words, it was OK to lie, but just a little. ... This, obviously, is an indefensible policy," she said.

"The city manager's office never designed any written policies or procedures governing the payment of legislators employed by the city. ... Was this merely incompetence? Or was it another manifestation of the special leeway given by the city to the legislators on its payroll?" Fitzsimmons asked.

Williams took 208.25 hours of sick time while the Legislature was in session in 2001, and Arberry took 80 hours of sick leave during a time period in which he attended legislative meetings, City Auditor Radford Snelding's report states. It also faulted Segerblom for allowing them to fill out the time cards with so much sick leave, and notes that the city had no policy in place to deal with the situation.

Williams claimed he helped the city with legislative issues during the 2001 session, and that the pay arrangement and a subsequent promotion came about because of that work. Arberry, who previously has denied doing anything that would put "a black eye on the city," has not spoken to the media since the initial reports came out, and declined to speak with Snelding.

Fitzsimmons also pointed to Williams' 2001 promotion. While Segerblom had recommended Williams for a raise, he could not receive one because he was at the cap for his current position.

The city had a hiring freeze at the time, Fitzsimmons said, but the city manager's office created a new position for Williams, and approved the promotion without Segerblom's signature.

Although Segerblom did not object, Fitzsimmons said, "the reality is that Ms. Segerblom had gotten the message loud and clear: Wendell Williams was to be treated differently than the other employees she supervised because his position in the Legislature rendered him uniquely valuable to the city."

The issues began to bubble up in late summer, following a string of disclosures about Williams' allegedly using his influence to get Briget Jones hired at Community College of Southern Nevada, failing to pay fines related to incomplete campaign finance disclosures, and a traffic ticket he was late in paying.

Media requests for his cell phone records showed what city officials later called excessive personal use, and he agreed to pay back $1,844.38. Then officials checked his city time cards from the 2003 Legislative session, and he agreed to pay back the city $6,700.

Williams subsequently alleged he had been pressured into signing the agreement.

Fretwell investigated that and other issues related to the matter, then recommended discipline up to or including termination.

In the course of that investigation, media requests for time cards filed by Williams and Arberry resulted in the public disclosure that both had used large amounts of sick time to receive almost full-time pay from the city while serving in the 2001 Legislature. At that point, the mayor and council asked the city auditor to review the entire issue.

Fretwell's report was released to the public with a cover memo from Selby dated Oct. 21. The day before, according to Fitzsimmons, Fretwell told Segerblom she had been demoted and was to leave City Hall immediately to begin a two-week without pay suspension. Fitzsimmons said Fretwell informed Segerblom that further investigation was ongoing and could lead to termination.

"Ms. Fretwell had not formally 'interviewed' Ms. Segerblom ... her decision to demote Ms. Segerblom ... was made without input from either the city attorney's office or human resources. This procedure is wholly unprecedented," Fitzsimmons said.

The auditor's report questioned the use of a "last-chance" agreement that Williams signed when he agreed to pay the city back the money from his 2003 time cards. Such agreements are typically used for union employees; the auditor's report does not say who in the city manager's office came up with the idea and said its use was inappropriate in Williams' case.

Along with the policy implications, the potential for people to lose their jobs, and the threats of lawsuits against the city, there still remains the issue of whether Williams and Arberry got pay they didn't earn, and how to resolve that.

A little-noticed policy was released by Goodman Nov. 17, the same day he released the auditor's report. It outlined what the city considered fraud, and the procedures by which it would pursue such cases and refer them for possible criminal prosecution. Last week, Selby said it could be applied in this situation, although he said the process had not been initiated.

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