Two friends have different plans for improving board

Thursday, Oct. 14, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

At first glance, there is not a lot that differentiates Board of Regents District 13 candidates James Dean Leavitt and Gloria Sturman.

They are both lawyers, they've both taught as adjunct professors and they even live around the corner from each other in Red Rock Country Club.

Leavitt, 42, and Sturman, 47, are also running for the same reasons -- they say they care about higher education and are upset at the current board's petty infighting and the repeated allegations that the board has violated the open meeting law.

Their stance on those issues helped them narrowly defeat incumbent Tom Kirkpatrick in the primary, who said he often got "painted with the same brush" when critics leveled attacks on the board.

The two candidates were the second and third runners-up in the primary, but both advanced to the general election after a District Court judge disqualified Mark DeStefano because he did not meet residency requirements. A District Court judge ruled Tuesday that DeStefano could not have his name put on the ballot while he appealed the decision.

But while the two candidates are friends and often agree on many of the issues facing higher education today -- such as the need to improve board credibility, fiscal responsibility, private-public partnerships and access to education -- they part ways on other issues, such as exactly how they would help restore credibility to the Board of Regents.

Leavitt said he would use his background in speech communication and rhetoric to help board members work together and to develop better public relations with the community they represent.

"When there's negative press and there's not goodwill, the climate for gift giving diminishes," Leavitt said.

Sturman said she believes the board will regain its credibility only through consistent, good governance. As the former chairwoman of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District board, she said she has a lot of experience in many of the same areas she would oversee as a regent -- including establishing public policy, governmental finance, budgeting, major capital construction projects, board governance and lobbying.

The two candidates have emphasized different issues in their campaigns.

For Leavitt, increasing the economic diversity of the state by increasing the higher education system's offerings of technology, engineering and design classes is key, as is expanding the state's nursing programs to meet the growing shortage of health care professionals.

Although he insists he's fiscally conservative, Leavitt said he believes it's worth spending more on education because it is the No. 1 cure for the rest of society's ills. It's something he's learned as a criminal defense attorney.

"The less education you have, the more direct correlation to committing a crime," Leavitt said.

Access to rural education is more important to Sturman, a private municipal liability lawyer, who said she knows how hard it is to have to leave a small town to go to college in a big city. She grew up in the tiny town of Delores, Colo., she said, and worked her way through school at Arizona State University.

Sturman said she wants to make sure the board is as fiscally responsible as possible because she knows the strain raising tuition would put on families. She recalled being angry at the regents in Arizona for raising tuition $100 in the late 1970s.

"I wanted to know who these regents were who decided whether I could eat that month, because I didn't have that $100," Sturman said. "I'd hate to see us price higher education out of the hands of the middle class."

Sturman said she wants to work on a statewide education plan that will improve cooperation between the various school districts and Nevada's higher education system to improve education for all. Sturman also thinks the Board of Regents needs to focus on policy issues and not "micromanage" the institutions.

Both agree that the Board of Regents needs to err on the side of openness when dealing with open meeting law issues, but Leavitt said the ambiguities in the law make it difficult to follow. Leavitt also said he agrees with Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers that the law frustrates efforts for the 13-member board to communicate between meetings.

And while Leavitt said he appreciates the chancellor's attempts at transparency by sending out weekly memos to the press at the same time as the regents, he said they often have created division between Rogers and the regents that further undermines the board's ability to work as a team.

Sturman, however, said she thinks the memos are an entirely appropriate way to communicate and said she doesn't understand why the board has had so many problems with the open meeting law.