Questions surround vote on Metro contract

Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005 | 8:20 a.m.

For someone appointed to a public board or committee, the opportunity to vote one's conscience can be enticing but not always the correct -- or ethical -- decision.

That's the view of local government observers who believe that board appointees' voting decisions hinge on whether an appointee was selected to represent a particular constituency, whether he is an authority on the issue being debated and whether the topic is one of strong public interest.

The question of how and why public board appointees vote the way they do was spotlighted when Las Vegas developer Peter Thomas cast the swing vote Monday in a 3-2 rejection of a new Metro Police labor contract.

As a representative of the public, observers say, Thomas was free to vote his conscience because he is the only citizen member of the five-member Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee. The other four members -- two each from Clark County and Las Vegas--represent their respective local governments.

Thomas disclosed that he personally might have supported the contract, which would have resulted in a 25.6 percent increase in salaries and benefits for police over the next four years.

But he said he voted with County Commissioners Rory Reid and Chip Maxfield to reject the deal out of deference to county taxpayers, given the fact that six of the county's seven commissioners had opposed the contract.

If an elected official is appointed to a board as a representative of his government, he has an ethical obligation to vote the way his government colleagues would want him to vote, said Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics.

"You can't go against your own institution because otherwise you would be serving under a false pretense," Walton said.

The problem, he said, is that the County Commission and city councils often do not give their representatives clear instructions on how to vote on particular issues.

"If you're voting on something that hasn't been discussed until now, and you haven't received instructions on how to vote, you should vote based on your sense of the public interest," Walton said. "The other option is that if you feel the committee is going in the wrong direction, and you don't want to be part of it, you can resign."

Boulder City Councilman Mike Pacini, who represents his city on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said he often has to vote "my gut feeling" because the council does not direct him on how to vote on LVCVA issues.

"I represent Boulder City, but I represent it on a global board, so you have to think about the region when you vote," Pacini said.

"We don't have gaming in Boulder City, but the LVCVA is a Southern Nevada board whose job is to bring in tourists to support our economic machine. If I didn't support gaming on a regional basis, it would be counterproductive to Boulder City because we share the consolidated tax and room tax revenues."

Carole Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, frequently is appointed to public boards and committees because she is widely considered one of the state's leading authorities on taxation.

If the association board has taken a position on an issue, Vilardo will vote accordingly. Otherwise, she said she votes her conscience.

"When I'm appointed on these committees, it is because they involve funding issues," Vilardo said. "I will voice my opinion, but at the first meeting of every committee I serve on, I will identify the position of the association. In that sense, I am an extension of the association."

Voting one's conscience is easier to do when the issue being debated is technical in nature or has not been in the public eye, UNLV political science professor David Damore said.

"When someone's background makes them an expert, you don't want them to worry about what the masses think," Damore said.

Steve Kanigher can be reached at 259-4075 or at steve@lasvegassun.com.