Petition team claims CCSN breaking law

Friday, June 18, 2004 | 9:18 a.m.

An attorney for a group trying to gather signatures for two ballot initiatives said he plans today to take another tale of harassment to the judge who extended time to gather petitions and clarified the rights of the gatherers.

Knight Allen, a longtime Las Vegas activist, went home Thursday from trying to collect signatures at the Community College of Southern Nevada's West Charleston Campus after he said two security guards harassed him.

The incident comes two days after District Judge Kenneth Cory extended the deadline for a group trying to gather signatures for two ballot initiatives and interpreted Nevada's unclear statute on petitioners' rights to gather signatures on public property.

"Judge Cory ordered government to obey the law," attorney Joel Hansen, representing Nevadans for Sound Government, said Thursday. "The government is supposed to obey the law and so do the people."

Hansen said he was going to ask the judge why the college administrator and the two security guards who confronted Allen at the campus shouldn't be held in contempt of court.

"I guess he was harassed, unbelievable!" Hansen said when told of the incident. "These people openly and blatantly violated the court order."

The judge had ruled early Tuesday that the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Regional Transportation Commission and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas intimidated canvassers for the group Nevadans for Sound Government and obstructed their constitutional right to free speech.

Allen said he went to the West Charleston campus at 8:45 a.m. Thursday and went to the administrator's office to notify officials he planned to gather signatures for petitions that would roll back the $833 million tax increase and would bar government employees from serving in the state Legislature.

"I got a lesson in civics real quick," said Allen, who said he was representing the Nevada Seniors Coalition.

A secretary in the office told him he had to fill out a form, which was not a part of the existing statute, Allen said. After a discussion, she asked him to leave the office. He told her he was going to Building C to collect signatures.

After half an hour, Allen said campus security Officer Ramon Rivera approached him on a bicycle.

"The officer told me I had to go," Allen said.

Allen told Rivera why he was allowed to stay, but the officer told him "he was just doing his job."

Allen put the petitions and clipboards in his car and went to the West Charleston Library.

Inside the library at the research desk, Allen said he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to face CCSN's chief of public safety, Sandy Seda.

"Both officers were polite," Allen said, "but intimidating."

Seda asked Allen for the statute's number and Allen gave it to him, he said.

"I was really taken aback by that," Allen said of the officer following him into the public library.

Neither officer could be reached for comment Thursday night.

George Harris, the director of Nevadans for Sound Government, said he returned to the West Charleston college campus Thursday afternoon with a handful of people to gather signatures. They went to Administrator Kathryn Jeffrey's office to notify the college and were allowed to gather signatures on campus.

"I'm dumbfounded by the arrogance of it," Harris said of the incident with Allen and the guards.

"He's demure, he's not a confrontational guy," he said.

The group had gathered more than 40,000 signatures for the tax repeal proposal and more than 20,000 for the legislative measure when the judge ruled Tuesday. The petitions each need 51,337 valid signatures from registered voters to get on the ballot; that number must include 10 percent of the voters in 13 of the state's 17 counties.

The judge's order allows petitioners to gather signatures until July 20.

According to the judge's decision, government agencies cannot require signature-gatherers to give advance notice of their intention to canvas on a public property, just to declare their presence once they arrive.