Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Legislative briefs for April 21, 2005

Health districts' funds rejected

A legislative budget committee today rejected a plan to give state money to the three local health districts in Nevada.

Gov. Kenny Guinn cut off aid to the districts, including Clark County, in 2003 during the budget crunch. And he did not include it in his budget this year.

The three health districts prepared a budget asking for state aid of $1.10 per capita. That would have meant a state appropriation of $2.4 million next fiscal year and $2.5 million the following year.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, expressed some concern. She said she diagreed with the way the committee had asked the counties to draw up a program and then refused to provide any funds.

Eminent domain to be clarified

Governments would have to provide more proof of why they want to take personal property through eminent domain under a bill passed unanimously Monday by the Assembly.

Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, said he has seen many instances of government taking property to redevelop it, and he wants to head off the problem before it mainfests in growing Las Vegas.

"I want to hold government to task to make them jump through a few more hoops," Horne said. Right now, government can take property if it meets one of nine criteria outlined in state statute, Horne said. The new bill would require at least four criteria to be met. They could include that the property is blighted, that it has an environmental contamination, or that it is not within access to streets or utilities.

The bill also requires developers to approach the property owner and offer to buy the property. Assembly bill 143 now goes to the Senate.

Exposing kids to drugs targeted

The Assembly unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would make it a felony to expose children to drugs.

Assembly Bill 465 would prohibit adults from intentionally allowing children to be in the immediate proximity of controlled substances other than marijuana, said its sponsor, Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt, D-Henderson.

The penalty would be either a Class A or B felony, depending on the circumstances. The Catagory B felony could yield between 3 and 20 years in prison. A Catagory A felony is murder.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

No seat belt penalty changes

The Senate Wednesday passed a bill to allow a parent convicted of failing to buckle up a child in a car to get off without a fine or community service.

The present law carries a fine of up to $500 or to order the defendant to perform up to 50 hours of community service.

Senate Bill 472, passed 20-0 by the Senate and sent to the Assembly, allows a judge to waive the fine and community service for a first offense if the person goes through training on the installation and use of a child restraint system.

The bill says that for second and subsequent offenses, the judge would be allowed to waive a fine in excess of $50 and any community service in excess of eight hours if the person took the training.

False complaints to be criminalized

The Senate Wednesday approved a bill that makes it a misdemeanor to file a false complaint against a government employee.

The present law makes it a misdemeanor for submitting a false allegation of misconduct against a peace officer. A U.S. District Court ruled that was impermissible to criminalize defamation against a peace officer but not to other public employees.

Senate Bill 150, which goes to the Assembly, makes its illegal to file a false complaint against all public employees. The bill, however, exempts elected officials from this protection.

Bid for appeals court is dropped

Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Becker said Wednesday the court decided to drop its proposal in the Legislature for creation of an intermediate court of appeals.

A proposed constitutional amendment had passed the 2003 Legislature and it would have had to be approved in this session and then ratified by the voters in 2006. But Senate Joint Resolution 5 died in the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday.

The Supreme Court in the past has pushed for an intermediate appeals court between the District Court and the Supreme Court. But Becker said "With two new justices and the filing numbers flat -- we decided to let the matter drop for this session."

If the number of cases increase in the next interim, Becker said the court could start the process over again. She said it would have been difficult to explain to the voters that the need for an intermediate court would increase the quality, if the number of appeals was not increasing.

Tougher law on ID theft passes

A bill to toughen the law on identity theft was approved by the Senate 19-0 Wednesday.

Senate Bill 347, introduced by Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, prohibits the start-up of forgery labs that steal personal information and then produce forgeries. The penalty is 1-20 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Stealing financial and other information from a person 60-years-old or older or from someone with a mental or physical impairment would carry a prison term of from 3-20 years and a fine of $100,000.

The bill, that goes to the Assembly, requires that businesses that choose to no longer maintain personal records would have to destroy them. This might happen in a case of a business closing and it would be required to shred or otherwise destroy the personal records.

The Assembly unanimously approved

a bill Wednesday that would put $12 million into the state's Contingency Fund, which is used when there are claims made against the state. Senate Bill 94 already won passage in the Senate, so the bill now goes to Gov. Kenny Guinn for approval.

A bill allocating $20,000 for a portrait

of Gov. Kenny Guinn cleared the Senate on a 20-0 vote Wednesday. The money in Assembly Bill 97 will pay for the painting and the frame for the portrait to hang in the hall of the state capitol, alongside other governors. The bill goes to Guinn for his signature.

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