County set to adopt ethics rules

Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 | 11:21 a.m.

Clark County government could have a new ethics policy in place by Tuesday.

County staff has worked over the last 90 days to draft new rules for elected officials, including the seven commissioners, department heads and staffs. The rules are based on a dozen recommendations submitted by a citizen task force earlier this year.

Commissioner Rory Reid, who with fellow Commissioner Bruce Woodbury backed the creation of the task force and the ethics rule revision, said the draft would likely gain the strong support of the commission.

He said the changes aim to ensure that politicians and county staff fully disclose to the public any existing or potential conflicts of interest.

"We need to do whatever we can to give people reason to have faith in the government," Reid said. "These rules are a significant improvement over the rules of the ethics policy in the past.

"Most of the egregious violations of the ethics laws that have taken place historically are because an elected official has failed to tell the public what his or her private interests are," he said. "These rules require more disclosure and I think they recognize the importance of disclosure."

The rule change comes as the county and other local governments have been buffeted by allegations of bribery, "double-dipping" into county and legislative pay and benefits, and insider dealing. However, the impetus for the change came before most of the allegations surfaced.

The effort to reform the rules, which focus on disclosure requirements, were based in part of former Commissioner Erin Kenny's work on behalf of a homebuilder who wanted to develop thousands of homes on Blue Diamond Hill, an area surrounded on three sides by the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Although the push to gain county approval was soundly rejected by the county commission and by a state law passed over the summer, staff argued that Kenny's lobbying on behalf of the developer violated the existing ethics rule that mandated a 12-month "cooling-off" period that banned involvement in issues the commissioner worked on while in office. Kenny, who has since pleaded guilty to unrelated corruption charges in a federal investigation centering on a local strip-club operation, argued at the time that the cooling-off period did not apply because she did not work on the specific Red Rock zoning later sought by developer Jim Rhodes.

Staff rejected that argument, but said there was little the county could do because no enforcement mechanism was included in the old ethics rules.

Under the new rules, a violation of the cooling-off period would extend the cooling-off timeline for another six months. While that in itself might not stop a politician bent on breaking the rules, a later action could.

Jim Spinello, Clark County assistant director of administrative services, said the county will go to the Legislature during the next session and ask that enforcement ability go to the Nevada Ethics Commission. The commission can fine politicians for violating ethical guidelines.

Another change that the county plans to ask the state to approve would be to change the amount that a locally elected official or state member can accept as a gift. The limit is now statewide $200; the ethics task force recommended dropping that limit to $50.

Also included in the recommendations is a rule mandating that the Clark County manager make a monthly report of conflict disclosures and abstentions by county officials.

Spinello said the new rules would not only apply to the county commissioners, but to the Clark County treasurer, assessor, clerk and recorder, all elected positions.