Petition group satisfied with apology

Thursday, June 24, 2004 | 9:21 a.m.

Community college officials will not face a hearing to determine whether they violated a judge's order to stop harassing and restricting the rights of Nevadans for Sound Government as the group gathers petitions to get two initiatives on the Nov. 2 ballot.

A court hearing that had been scheduled for Monday could have resulted in the higher education system being found in contempt of court for giving signature gatherers a hard time at the Community College of Southern Nevada's West Charleston campus last week, but Nevadans for Sound Government's attorney, Joel Hansen, said he is dropping the case because the group is satisfied with an apology it received and with the fact that the petition gatherers are no longer running into problems at the campus.

Hansen said he had spoken with Bart Patterson, assistant general counsel for the University and Community College System of Nevada, "And he said the incident was due to miscommunication."

In addition, Hansen said, "An effort has been made on their (UCCSN) part to be responsible and he said the entire university system will obey the judge's order.

"What we want is signatures," Hansen said. "If they (state agencies) obey the order, we will get them. This was never about punitive damages, but signatures."

Hansen said on two separate occasions, just two days after District Judge Kenneth Cory issued an order that the petition gatherers not be harassed, CCSN violated the order. First community activist Knight Allen and later Christopher Hansen and George Harris, director of Nevadans for Sound Government, were harassed while trying to gather signatures for the petitions at the campus, Hansen said.

On June 15, Cory granted a 35-day deadline extension for the group's effort to get initiatives on the ballot to repeal last year's $833 million tax increase and another to prevent government workers from serving in the Legislature.

Cory also barred the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Regional Transportation Commission and the University and Community College System of Nevada from "intimidating or preventing" the group's petitioners.