County ethics panel urges teaching, fines

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.

The Clark County Ethics Task Force says public officials need to be taught ethical behavior if the county wants to avoid conflicts of interest, and those who break the rules should face hefty fines.

In a draft report issued today, the task force put an emphasis on education and consequences to improve county ethics policies. The task force was reinstated earlier this year after a string of high-profile ethical issues.

Among the issues, former Commissioner Erin Kenny, now a target of a federal corruption probe, lobbied for a developer on a contentious proposal to build homes near Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Kenny left office in January and began almost immediately to work for developer Jim Rhodes, who frequently has issues come before the County Commission.

The task force recommended the county hold regular workshops on ethics for elected officials and high-level staff.

The draft also toughens a 12-month "cooling off" period during which any elected or appointed official "will not represent or act for others before Clark County government." The current rule applies only to issues that an elected official worked on while in office.

Kenny defended her work with Rhodes by arguing that the developer's Red Rock project was not technically on the Clark County Commission agenda before she left office, although rules governing development in the area were considered.

Any violation of the cooling-off rule would extend the lobbying ban an additional six months. But the task force also would like to put real teeth, including the potential for fines, into the rules.

The draft recommendations ask the Nevada Ethics Commission, which will review the draft, to enforce provisions of the county's rules. Clark County Manager Thom Reilly said that could mean significant fines for transgressors.

Commissioner Rory Reid, who looked at the draft for the first time this morning, said the rules also now include senior staff.

"It's anybody in the county management plan," he said. "It removes all the loopholes that existed. It creates a penalty where none existed before.

"It's pretty comprehensive," he said. "It's easier to understand and more readily enforceable."

The task force will meet Tuesday to look at the final rules and is expected to pass a final draft to the Nevada Ethics Commission staff, which will have 30 days to review the rules, offer comments and suggest changes.

Reilly said the Clark County Commission is now expected to consider and potentially pass the new rules in mid-October.

"It doesn't solve all the issues, but it does allow new elected and appointed officials to understand the process," he said. "It definitely helps."

A three-page brief accompanying the recommendations by task force member Craig Walton, a University of Nevada at Las Vegas ethics professor, noted that ethics education is widespread throughout many professional fields such as law, engineering, journalism and medicine.

"But political ethics receives less work and less attention, while at the same time it is as important or more important to a self-governing society of free and responsible citizens than is any one of those other segments," Walton wrote.

"We seek to remedy this gap by instituting regular ethics workshops as a part of the workplace culture of Clark County government at all levels -- all elected and appointed officials," Walton said in the report.

John Hiatt, a task force member and chairman of the Enterprise Town Advisory Board, agreed that education should be a central component of the new ethical guide.

"The basic assumption is that most people will behave in an ethical manner if they are aware of what they're rules and responsibilities are," Hiatt said.

But referring to a number of clouds over the county recently, including the federal corruption probe, Hiatt said education is not a guarantee.

"If people are basically not ethical, there is nothing you can do to make them follow the rules," he said.

Richard Morgan, dean of the UNLV Boyd School of Law and task force chairman, said that outside the specific recommendations on education and the cooling-off period, the guide focuses on general principles.

"The more specific you get, the more at least some people believe that whatever isn't prohibited is permitted," Morgan said.

"The ultimate judge on the ethics of anyone in office will be the voter."