Thursday, June 23, 2005 | 9:04 a.m.
Three Clark County officials are expected be among the roughly 2,000 people who will head to Hawaii, courtesy of taxpayers, to rub elbows with leaders from throughout the country next month.
The National Association of Counties conference in Honolulu, which begins July 15 and ends July 19, is a much-needed opportunity to tout the Las Vegas Valley and network with other officials facing similar concerns, the local officials said.
At $4,197, the bill for the trip covers round-trip airfare, four nights hotel accommodation at $239 a night and an $150 meal allowance for Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald and Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes. It jumps to $6,932 with Assistant County Recorder Charles Harvey's trip to the Aloha State for the National Association of County Recorders, Elected Officials and Clerks meeting, which overlaps with the counties conference.
Boggs McDonald said it will be a chance for her to share with fellow commissioners the innovations other counties are trying. In the past, Clark County's automated boarding pass system at McCarran International Airport has served as a template for other counties, she said.
"Unless you go to those kind of conferences, you're not aware of the challenges and innovations they're dealing with," Boggs McDonald said.
Harvey was originally slated to attend that conference but will instead attend the recorders' conference -- which partially overlaps with the conference Boggs McDonald and Holmes will attend -- at the request of County Recorder Frances Deane, who approved the trip, county spokesman Erik Pappa said. Harvey is expected to stay for five days at an estimated cost to the county of $2,734 including $751 for airfare and almost $1,200 for hotel.
The recorders, elected officials and clerks group is affiliated with the National Association of Counties.
The pricetag for the three officials is almost twice what the county paid to send Holmes, Intergovernmental Affairs Director Dan Musgrove and Social Services Director Darryl Martin to the convention in Phoenix -- where lodging costs alone were less than half what they are expected to be in Honolulu -- last year, according to expense reports provided to the Sun.
Holmes acknowledged that sending government employees to Hawaii with public money could create a negative perception, but added that the three previous conventions held in Las Vegas were criticized elsewhere.
"They (National Association of Counties) have always been careful of the perception issue," Holmes said. "There was always concern about those from a very conservative, non-gaming county, that it would affect attendance."
Holmes said he expects attendance to drop at this year's meeting because of more expensive flights and hotel costs. Of the association's 3,000 total member counties, Holmes said about 2,000 will likely attend.
Some of the criticism that county officials around the nation are getting for jetting off to what some call an island paradise prompted the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaii's largest newspaper, to publish an editorial last week.
"Funny, the same questions don't seem to come up as much when the convention is in, say, Milwaukee or Philadelphia, sites for previous gatherings," the editorial states. "... But to suggest that Hawaii's beauty would merely inspire officials to goof off on the taxpayers' dime is not only a presumptive insult to officials, but it also reflects a lack of understanding of Hawaii's status as a metropolitan city with a thriving and innovative business industry."
According to the association's Web site, the convention will include forums on agriculture, air quality, transportation and public lands management. Most will be held at the Honolulu Convention Center.
The decision to hold the conference in Hawaii came after "extensive debate" of which Holmes said he was a part. He ultimately supported the decision.
"I saw nothing wrong with it," Holmes said. "What the board was trying to do was get to different geographic parts of the country. ... Honolulu asked to be the host county."
Commissioner Chip Maxfield will also attend, but is paying his own way, Pappa said.
Commissioners typically have wide-reaching discretion to attend conferences on the county's dime, Pappa said. Maxfield could have chosen to go at public expense but would not elaborate on why he opted to pay for his trip himself.
"It's offered to every commissioner," Pappa said. "If any commissioner wants to go to a conference the county will pay for it."
County-funded travel is limited to domestic trips and, because of Hawaii's location outside the contiguous United States, it made determining who would take this trip somewhat difficult, County Manager Thom Reilly said. Each of the county's 38 department heads can submit requests for rank-and-file employees to attend various conferences, which Reilly can approve or deny, he added.
Maxfield, whose district includes the Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, said he plans to attend a seminar geared toward county officials whose jurisdictions include such military installations.
"I'm there to listen and learn," Maxfield said, adding that he also hopes he can teach as well.
"Clark County is growing and has been very successful in solving some of its issues. We always like to see what other people have done. We have a lot to bring to the table."
Reilly said Boggs McDonald, who sits on the association's national board and its Nevada chapter, and Holmes will attend the conference after an outpouring of requests from staffers asking to travel to the tropical -- but expensive -- locale.
The convention will be Boggs McDonald's first, she said Thursday.
"I'm looking forward to absorbing and looking at regional issues," Boggs McDonald said. "... Clark County is now, today, not only one of the largest geographic counties, it's becoming one the most populous counties. We want to make sure we're sitting at the table."
Boggs McDonald, who during her days as a Las Vegas City Councilwoman was a president of the Nevada League of Cities, has traveled to Washington D.C. for an annual March meeting of county officials from across the country to lobby Congress on the county's behalf, although she said she did not attend this year.
As a board member of the county association, Boggs McDonald is part of a group in charge of the trade organization's budget and policy issues.
Holmes, himself the president-elect of another affiliate group, the National Association of County Administrators, is expected to lecture at the conference on how Clark County is "a model" to other jurisdictions looking to provide services normally provided by a city government in an large, unincorporated urban area that more closely resembles an area within the city limits, he said.
The convention will come a few weeks after Reilly's self-funded trip to meet with officials in Budapest, Hungary.
Reilly left Friday for Budapest, part of a two-week trip sponsored by the International Management Exchange Program during which time he said he will lecture on the county's HIV prevention and child welfare programs.
Reilly said Thursday he will also attend presentations about what he described as the Eastern European city's "phenomenal" public transit system and hopes to come away with ideas for Clark County's burgeoning bus and potential light-rail system, he said.
"But I'm paying for it myself," Reilly said before any question of cost was raised.
Instead, the county manager said he would pay his airfare and, as part of the exchange program, stay in the home of leaders in Budapest.
In his absence, Reilly said he will appoint Chief Administrative Officer Don Burnette and Assistant County Manager Virginia Valentine to assume his duties, although he plans daily conference calls with key officials.
"I have a phone and e-mail," Reilly said. "It'll be just like I'm not gone." 10McDonald
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