O’Callaghan’s legacy as governor stands test of time

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 4:57 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 13 - 14, 2004

For a Nevada governor who never proposed any new taxes in his eight years in office, the late Mike O'Callaghan still managed to leave an unmatched legacy that affects virtually every aspect of state government.

It was under O'Callaghan that Las Vegas neighborhoods became racially integrated, Southern Nevada and Carson City got their own community colleges, Lake Tahoe became protected from rampant development and mentally ill criminal defendants were given proper medical treatment.

It was under O'Callaghan that consumers were given protection from scam artists, the state began formulating its own energy strategies, a standing commission was developed to review clean air and water regulations and senior citizens were given services to help them live independently.

Those were among the many policies the fiscally conservative Democrat was able to achieve as governor from 1971 to 1979 that have stood the test of time and still exist today.

O'Callaghan, who later became executive editor and chairman of the Las Vegas Sun, died on March 5 at age 74. He was buried Thursday at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

"Even more than his three predecessors, Gov. O'Callaghan took an active role in the legislative process, offering an ambitious program and lobbying aggressively for his proposals in the 1971 legislature," author Russell Elliott wrote in the book "History of Nevada."

"From the beginning of his eight years in office, O'Callaghan demonstrated that he would be a people-oriented governor. Many of the achievements of the first session demonstrated that attitude, including Nevada's first fair-housing act and a number of antipollution and environmental measures."

The first of his four State of the State addresses, delivered to the Nevada Legislature in 1971, was a voluminous listing of major proposals that covered the topics: education, environment, children, conflict of interest, gaming, consumer protection, public employees, human rights, the working man, older Nevadans, health and highway safety. It also contained resolutions -- including the right of 18-year-olds to vote, which he supported.

"No man who has occupied the office of governor for less than three weeks can be expected to know everything there is to know about state government," O'Callaghan said in that address. "There is a school of thought, adhered to by Nevada's former chief executives, suggesting that I will know even less about it at the end of four years."

O'Callaghan, though, would go on to become the state's most popular governor. He was so popular that Elliott wrote this about the 1973 legislative session and O'Callaghan's re-election the following year:

"As had been the case in 1971, O'Callaghan gained most of what he had requested, leading one legislator to declare flatly that the session had been a rubber stamp for the governor.

"The governor's race in 1974 was no contest, with the very popular O'Callaghan receiving 91 percent of the vote in the primary and 67.4 percent in the general election, the highest ever in a Nevada gubernatorial contest."

Asked to give his opinion of O'Callaghan's single greatest achievement as governor, state archivist Guy Rocha said it was the racial integration of Las Vegas neighborhoods that came with the passage in 1971 of the state's first open housing law.

O'Callaghan told lawmakers then that he would meet with Las Vegas community leaders and federal officials because of "widespread charges of discrimination, both direct and indirect, in housing." It was in this context that he proposed the open housing law.

"For I earnestly believe that when one man is deprived of human dignity, we are all lesser men because of it," he told lawmakers.

Up to that point, black residents were largely confined to West Las Vegas. Rocha was living in Southern Nevada at the time.

"Las Vegas was a segregated community, with very little disbursement of the minority population," Rocha said. "Most of the integration was handled through busing. When this law passed it became illegal to discriminate based on who you sold to and who you rented to.

"I watched Las Vegas move from a segregated community to a virtually integrated community. Black entertainers and others who could afford to move did so. It was landmark legislation that changed the social dynamics of Southern Nevada."

Listing all of O'Callaghan's gubernatorial achievements is a monumental task but many of his lasting accomplishments have to do with functions of state government that did not exist before he first took office.

Among those achievements:

The Nevada Division for Aging Services was created, providing a variety of services for residents aged 60 and older. The agency serves more than 250,000 clients today by giving money to roughly 100 service-providing organizations.

Thanks to the division, seniors can get 50 percent discounts on taxi transportation, help in their home to provide for continued independent living, and counseling assistance for Medicare disputes.

"Our primary focus is low-income people, minorities and rural populations," Bruce McAnnany, the agency's deputy administrator, said. "By creating the agency, Mike committed state dollars to match federal dollars.

"We now write a strategic plan every four years. Because there are so many people moving to Nevada who are seniors, we have a waiting list for every program we've got.

"If the division didn't exist, no one would receive Meals on Wheels. There wouldn't be an ombudsman for long-term care. We would not have a community care program, which serves 1,500 people statewide. We would not have a homemaker program, which serves 600 people statewide."

The Nevada Housing Division was created, which has provided housing for more than 36,000 Nevada families through programs such as lower-than-average mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers and affordable apartments for other lower income individuals, including seniors.

The division does this without dipping into the state's general fund. Instead, it has sold more than $2 billion in mostly tax-exempt revenue bonds that have been used to finance construction of affordable housing.

"We were formed to get people into home ownership earlier than their economic conditions and circumstances would normally allow," division administrator Chas Horsey said. "It took a program like ours to induce developers to build affordable housing rather than upscale housing.

"There are social benefits to owning your own home. Without the division, many people would have to wait four or five years to buy a home or they would have to spend a much higher percentage of their disposable income for rent."

The Nevada Consumer Affairs Division was created, which gives Nevadans a place to file complaints and seek restitution when they have been victims of business scams. Since the late 1980s, the division has secured restitution for more than 100,000 individuals.

Working in conjunction with law enforcement agencies, the division monitors discount buying clubs, dance studios, martial arts studios, health clubs, weight loss clinics, automobile repairmen, charitable solicitors, magazine sales, sports-betting information services, telemarketers and travel agencies.

The division also requires certain businesses that take money in advance of services performed to post a security bond with the state that can be used to help pay restitution if the business goes under.

"We generally do in excess of $1 million a year in restitution and fines," division Commissioner Patricia Morse Jarman said. "As the state grows so does the sophistication of the criminal mind and the sophistication of the agency to respond to these issues. Right now, the biggest issue we face is identity theft."

Jarman said that if the division didn't exist, "it would be a devastating blow to consumers of all walks of life."

The Community College of Southern Nevada and Western Nevada Community College in Carson City were established. CCSN now has three campuses and had 35,496 students as of last fall.

"That's about a third of the students enrolled in higher education in the state," University and Community College System of Nevada Chancellor Jane Nichols said of CCSN. "So that has been a point of access for people who want to go to college."

Nichols said the benefits of community colleges are that they provide job training skills and access to higher education for many students who otherwise would not have any options beyond high school. Half of Nevada's graduating high school seniors go on to college, but Nichols said that figure would be reduced to 25 percent if CCSN did not exist.

"It's hard to imagine this community without a community college," Nichols said. "Without CCSN, many students would not be able to go to college."

The State Environmental Commission was created, an 11-member body that includes six private sector representatives appointed by the governor and five state officials.

Short of the Nevada Legislature passing its own laws, no environmental regulation can be adopted without the commission's approval. This includes clean air and water guidelines as well as provisions governing solid waste, hazardous waste and soil cleanup.

The commission also rules on disputes involving businesses that have been accused of violating environmental regulations.

"If there was no commission, it would probably be more difficult and take a lot longer to get environmental regulations in place," John Walker, the commission's executive secretary, said. "And it would be too expensive for businesses to wait for environmental regulations to be put in place."

In the area of mental health, facilities were created that specialized in treatment for children with emotional and behavioral disorders, live-in services for mentally retarded adults and children, and live-in treatment for mentally ill individuals charged with crimes.

Under O'Callaghan, the Children's Behavioral Services Center opened in Las Vegas and provided services for children up to age 12. The name has since been changed to the Southern Nevada Child and Adolescence Center, which operates in five locations in the Las Vegas Valley and treats children up to age 18. Last fiscal year, the program served 1,816 children.

"It was a very significant thing that he did to form a mental health center for children," Christa Peterson, deputy administrator of the Nevada Division of Child & Family Services' Southern Region, said. "To have a separately funded program for the mental health of children was rare in the 1970s.

"We provide a comprehensive array of mental health services for children all the way from early intervention for young children to inpatient psychiatric care for adolescents."

O'Callaghan got the state to open live-in facilities in Las Vegas and Reno to provide family counseling, job training and other independent living skills for mentally retarded adults and children. The two facilities, now known as the Desert Regional Center in Las Vegas and Sierra Regional Center in Reno, serve a combined 112 individuals. A third center serving rural Nevada has since been added.

"In the 1970s there weren't a lot of programs for these folks in the community," Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the Nevada Division of Mental Health & Developmental Services, said. "The goal is to move them back to the community."

If these centers didn't exist, Brandenburg said it would be difficult for the families of mentally retarded individuals to cope.

"A lot of these families don't have the skills or support to take care of them," Brandenburg said.

Another existing facility that opened during O'Callaghan's administration is the Lakes Crossing Center for the Mentally Disordered Offender in Sparks. The 48-bed facility treats mentally ill individuals who have been charged with a crime but who have not yet gone to trial.

The intent is either to treat the individual so that he is competent to stand trial or declare him incompetent to go to trial. In the case of incompetency, one option is to commit the individual to a state psychiatric hospital. Before O'Callaghan, mentally ill defendants typically were mixed in with all other jailed individuals, Lakes Crossing director Elizabeth Neighbors said.

"There was no place in the state of Nevada to carry out these functions so it deprived them of due process," Neighbors said. "Because of federal and state laws you cannot send someone to trial who isn't competent."

A state department was created to craft energy policy for Nevada. While the department formed under O'Callaghan no longer exists, many of its functions are now part of the Nevada State Office of Energy, which was created in 2001 and operates out of the governor's office.

Since Nevada imports all of its refined gasoline and much of its electricity, energy office director Dick Burdette said the state has been exploring ways to generate energy through geothermal, wind and solar energy options. The energy office also provides input to local governments on ways to update building codes to account for energy efficiency.

"We provide a rudder that keeps Nevada on course with regard to renewable energy and energy conservation," Burdette said.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which includes representatives from both Nevada and California, was given power to restrict development around Lake Tahoe. The agency was created shortly before O'Callaghan took office but it had no teeth.

The authority the planning agency needed to slow development around the lake was put in place during O'Callaghan's second term in office and still exists.

"I hope the Legislature agrees that the time has arrived when we must halt further unrestricted development in the Lake Tahoe Basin," O'Callaghan told the Legislature in 1977. "Otherwise, extensive growth will overwhelm the ability of government to insure the protection of this unique gift of nature."

In his 1973 book, "Nevada Politics," author Albert Johns called O'Callaghan the "hardest working chief executive in the history of Nevada." At the time, O'Callaghan had been governor for only two years.

"Former Governor Paul Laxalt has told him he 'is crazy to work at such a pace,' that he had better slow down, 'or stand the risk of burning himself out,"' Johns wrote.

"Where Governor Laxalt thoroughly disliked many aspects of the position, Governor O'Callaghan thrives upon it, savors it, and rises early each day to rush head-on into the meetings which fill his calendar."

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