Columnist Jeff German: The police union’s stepped-up probe

Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005 | 7:34 a.m.

The cops are back on the attack in their fight with the county to get a decent pay raise.

In the past two weeks, lawyers for the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union that represents some 2,400 officers, have flooded Clark County with public information requests.

"We want the county to be held accountable for having a double standard in how they compensate themselves in both pay and benefits compared to us," PPA Executive Director Dave Kallas says.

What the cops have requested is the kind of information, I suspect, that some within the county might be reluctant to release.

County Manager Thom Reilly, however, doesn't seem too worried.

"I've never had a problem with people asking for public information," Reilly says.

The cops want the cell phone records and e-mail correspondence of the seven county commissioners for September and October.

These are the crucial months leading up to the Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee's rejection Oct. 24 of a collective bargaining agreement between the PPA and Metro Police. The contract guaranteed officers a 25.6 percent hike in wages and benefits over four years, a deal the county believes is too rich.

The union, however, believes the county resorted to some political chicanery to undermine the agreement. It has filed a lawsuit against county officials to overturn the Fiscal Affairs Committee vote, and it has lodged an open meeting law complaint with the attorney general's office.

All of this stems from an unprecedented move to bounce Commissioner Tom Collins, the union's man on Fiscal Affairs, from the five-member panel and replace him with Commission Chairman Rory Reid. The substitution gave the county the 3-2 majority on Fiscal Affairs it needed to shoot down the police pay raise.

Last week an AG investigator looking into a potential open meeting law violation created a buzz at the County Government Center when he interviewed Collins.

Commissioners have denied any improprieties here. But union leaders are hoping the cell phone records and e-mails will give them more insight into how their friend on Fiscal Affairs was unceremoniously dumped. They want to know whether Collins was a victim of unlawful clandestine polling by his six colleagues.

But that's not the only information PPA lawyers are seeking from the county, as they gear up for likely binding arbitration in the contract dispute.

They're also looking to turn up the heat on Reilly.

In its lawsuit, the union accused Reilly of conspiring with the fiscally conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal to spread "misinformation" about the police contract in an effort to derail it.

Reilly denies the allegation.

But the union still wants details of Reilly's wage and benefits package with the county, including bonuses, car allowances, gasoline reimbursements and cell phone use.

It also wants to know whether Reilly, who earns $196,889 a year, has a severance package or "golden parachute."

The PPA's most intriguing request involves an effort to gather information on the wages and benefits of aides to three county commissioners -- Reid, Myrna Williams and Lynette Boggs McDonald.

By no coincidence these are the only three commissioners up for re-election next year.

Kallas downplayed the political significance of that request.

It's the first real sign, however, that the PPA, one of the state's more politically active unions, is prepared to let the contract dispute spill over onto the campaign trail.

Reid, the son of Nevada's most influential politician, Sen. Harry Reid, and Williams have been longtime PPA friends.

But with the livelihood of the cops on the line this time, traditional political alliances are also hanging in the balance.