Thursday, May 5, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.
Soon-to-be permanent chancellor Jim Rogers and a handful of university regents are looking into whether there needs to be a "cooling-off period" before a regent can seek a job at a system institution.
Rogers said he was responding to two negative editorials that appeared in both Las Vegas newspapers in the past few days questioning how Regent Doug Seastrand ended up in a $105,000 job as a computer scientist at UNLV's Research Foundation.
Seastrand announced he was resigning from the University and Community College System of Nevada Board of Regents last Thursday to take the position at the foundation's Institute for Security Studies. His goal in resigning was to avoid any appearance of impropriety, Seastrand said at the time, but at least five regents have since questioned whether it was even appropriate for Seastrand to apply for a job at the university while he was serving on the university's governing board.
The same concern was raised in the editorials, Rogers said, and it is a legitimate question.
"We don't want the public to be uncomfortable with how this was done," Rogers said. "This was done straight, that's just the way he (Seastrand) deals, but it does raise an appearance of a problem."
Rogers said he will bring the issue up at the regents' June meeting and that he will recommend regents adopt a one-year cooling off period between the time a regent ends his duties and pursues a job at the system office or one of the system's eight institutions.
Seastrand did not return calls for comment Wednesday.
Regents were mixed on the issue Wednesday, but at least five said they would support some type of policy prohibiting regents from applying for a system job while they are still overseeing the system.
"I don't want to criticize Doug," said Regent Steve Sisolak, who was the first to suggest the policy to Rogers. "He clearly didn't do anything wrong because we don't have a policy. But I think very legitimate questions have been raised and they need to be answered."
Regents James Dean Leavitt, Mark Alden, Linda Howard and Bret Whipple all agreed, although all regents said they didn't think Seastrand had intentionally done anything wrong.
Still, the incident "casts doubt on UNLV and the Board of Regents," Leavitt said.
Both Sisolak and Howard said they were especially concerned about the other candidates who had applied for the job. UNLV spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said Seastrand was one of three candidates interviewed in a national search.
"There is no way that the competition could have been fair with a sitting regent in the competition for a $100,000 job," Howard said.
Howard herself said she turned down an internship opportunity at UNLV working with high school students soon after she was elected because she worried that her position as a regent might have given her an unfair advantage for the $14,000 a year job. Howard said she had gotten clearance from system attorneys and the state ethics commission to take the job, but she decided the criticism she endured from the press was valid.
Howard said Seastrand should also have disclosed to his fellow regents that he was applying for the job and not voted on issues relating to UNLV. Most regents did not learn of Seastrand's application until he resigned on Thursday.
There is currently no state statute or Board of Regents policy that would have prohibited Seastrand from seeking the job, system attorneys and Stacy Jennings, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics, said.
State law does prohibit public officers from taking employment in business or industries that they regulate within a one-year time frame, Jennings said, but that doesn't appear to apply to the university. State law specifically prohibits anyone on the Nevada Gaming Commission or Public Utilities Commission from taking a job in those industries within one year of leaving office.
"There's nothing that would bar any public entity from enacting a stricter cooling off period for themselves than is applied through state statute," Jennings said. "Surely when you are doing that you are ensuring the public's trust and avoiding that appearance of impropriety."
At least two regents, however, Dorothy Gallagher of Elko and Howard Rosenberg of Reno, said the issue with Seastrand was overblown.
"I really think that is much ado about nothing," Gallagher said. "Regent Seastrand is a very straight, strict, ethical individual. I can't believe that he did anything as a regent to create a job for himself to fall into. I don't buy into this criticism at all really."
Rosenberg, a professor at UNR, said he understood how Seastrand's actions could have the appearance of impropriety, but he said he had no doubt that there was no impropriety in this case.
"Douglas Seastrand is probably one of the most honorable men I've ever met," Rosenberg said. "He would no more exercise any kind of retribution on anyone for getting or not getting a job than he would fly to the moon in his underwear."
Seastrand, a computer scientist, is highly qualified for the position, university officials said. He is responsible for helping the university develop and transfer technology to help local and federal agencies combat terrorism and improve homeland security.
Gov. Kenny Guinn is still taking names for possible appointees to Seastrand's position in District 6 on the east side of Las Vegas, spokesman Greg Bortolin said. There is no timetable set for filling that position.
Seastrand said he would have no problem with regents enacting a cooling-off policy and he can see in retrospect why there have been questions raised about his application.
"I can see how someone possibly could have used influence (as a regent to get the job)," Seastrand said. "I never did. I tried to be as disclosing as I could and chose the most ethical route."
Seastrand, who was reelected to his second six-year term just last November, said he was sad to leave his post as a regent but that he felt a higher calling to work for the Research Foundation dealing with homeland security issues.
archive
