Task force offers proposals to curb lapses in ethics

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2003 | 9:33 a.m.

The Clark County Ethics Task Force wrapped up three months of work Tuesday morning, delivering a series of recommendations that task force members and county officials hope will beef up and clarify rules for county leaders.

Included were 11 principles of good government, a call for intensive education on ethical guidelines for elected officials and county managers, and 11 recommendations for policy changes.

Before the package is adopted, it will go the the state Ethics Commission for review. In October or November, it will go to the Clark County Commission, which can adopt some, all or none of the recommendations from the citizen panel.

A key provision of the documents would expand the "cooling off" period for county commissioners after they leave office, from six months to a year, and extend the policy so that it also covers appointed county managers and department heads. Also, the proposal would be to disallow any lobbying by those officials for a year. The policy in place allows officials to lobby on issues that they did not work on while in office.

The cooling-off period and particularly ambiguity on what constitutes a forbidden subject for lobbying became issues this year when former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny, who left office in January, lobbied on behalf of developer Jim Rhodes in a controversial plan to build thousands of homes near the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

County managers said Kenny appeared to be in violation of the existing rule because she considered rules to prevent development in the area while a commissioner. She said she wasn't because the specific development proposal didn't come before the commission until after she left office.

Under the new rules, there would not be any doubt. The rules also provide more sanctions than now exist -- which are, essentially, none at all.

Any violation of the cooling-off period would extend the period by six months. More substantial penalties could come from the state Ethics Commission: the task force is asking the state board to enforce the rules. The state ethics panel can levy fines against political scofflaws or forward complaints to the Nevada attorney general.

"I think the cooling-off period will be much more readily enforced," said Clark County counsel Mary Miller.

Another provision that Miller said would be helpful for politicians -- and staff such as herself who have to advise them on what can and can't be done while in office -- would be educational programs. Those programs are not spelled out in detail, but would include regular workshops for county leaders on ethics.

Other provisions recommend wider and deeper disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, and the package also includes recommendations for stiffening state rules to bar gifts worth more than $200 from donors who have issues before them.

Richard Morgan, dean of the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and task force chairman, said the changes can help policymakers avoid ethical problems. They won't end ethical or even criminal behavior, however.

"I think it's a step in the right direction. It ought to help people who want to be ethical," he said. "People who don't want to be ethical, nothing is going to help.

"It is going to end all of the ethical problems of mankind, forever? No."