Officials praise Kincaid-Chauncey

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 9:37 a.m.

Clark County commissioners said their goodbyes to Mary Kincaid-Chauncey at the last regular meeting of the commission Tuesday.

Kincaid-Chauncey, who is fighting federal indictments for allegedly taking cash for votes affecting the Clark County strip-club industry, lost in the primary to former Assemblyman Tom Collins, D-North Las Vegas.

Kincaid-Chauncey's colleagues avoided direct references to her legal troubles.

"You exemplify a great public servant," said Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield, who successfully ran in the same election. "You were always kind and courteous."

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who was elected to her seat in November after Gov. Kenny Guinn appointed her in April, said she has known Kincaid-Chauncey since Boggs McDonald served as a Las Vegas assistant city manager and later city councilwoman.

"It's been great sitting next to you these last several months," Boggs McDonald said. "I want to again thank you for your service through the years for the citizens ... Although 10,000 may be against you, with God on your side you will always be in the majority."

Kincaid-Chauncey thanked her family and her constituents for their support.

"I can't tell you how much it has meant to me to have you still stand behind me," she said. "It isn't who is in the seat ... It is all of the people working together that makes things happen.

"I am really looking forward to retirement. You'll still see me around. You'll still see me in the community doing all kinds of things."

Also on Tuesday the County Commission:

Under the plan, doctors would receive a base salary of about $143,000 to $162,000 a year, but could receive quarterly bonuses of $6,500 for seeing four or more patients an hour. However, hospital officials would review the patient records of doctors who see more than four patients, on average, an hour, and complaints could mean a reduction in the dollars going to the doctors.

Hospital and county officials said the review process helps protect the quality of patient care while the incentive for quick turnaround of patients promotes fiscal efficiency. The Quick Cares are a unit of the county's University Medical Center, which has for two years worked to turn around a fiscal deficit that county officials warned threatened the viability of the public hospital system.

Several Quick Care doctors spoke in favor of the new management plan.

"The plan rewards physicians for the work they do," Dr. Maria Martinez said. "It ensures patient safety. It keeps physicians working at their respective sites."

Leonard "Pat" Goodall, former UNLV president and Growth Management Task Force chairman, said the group, which has been meeting since March, is working to keep its recommendations concise. The group is charged with coming up with ways to handle the region's explosive growth rates, which have affected virtually every aspect of Clark County life, from property values to traffic jams.

Goodall, who received high marks from county commissioners who said they watch the group's discussions on Clark County's cable Channel 4, said he is concerned that the group's efforts "will be just another government report that will go on the shelf somewhere and ignored."

He said his other concern is that people will believe that the report will solve all the region's growth-related problems.

"We have not found a magic solution."

The federal Environmental Protection Agency last summer put Las Vegas on its list of metropolitan areas violating new ozone standards and gave the regional air quality agency, the Clark County Department of Air Quality and Environmental Management, three years to produce a plan to control ozone. Christine Robinson, department director, said the change in regulations was needed to clear up potentially ambiguous language that the EPA warned might lead to a loss of local control over permitting ozone "single source" producers.

Representatives of Kerr-McGee, an Oklahoma City-based chemical company with a plant in Henderson, asked the county to hold off on implementing the new regulations until more definitive information from the EPA on what needs to be included in the control plan is available. Several other companies, including representatives from the MGM-Mirage, disagreed and promoted the regulatory amendment.

Robinson said that without the change, companies seeking permission to emit ozone might have to apply directly to the EPA rather than the county's local office.

"This is to continue in the interim, in the clear abasence of EPA guidance," Robinson said. "Until we get clarity from EPA, we have souces in this community that need permits. If we can't issue them, EPA has to."