Tom Gorman elects to join students at county seminar on good governing - one day after raid

Friday, March 10, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

On Wednesday afternoon, police raided the offices of Clark County Recorder Frances Deane, investigating whether she is corrupt.

On Thursday morning, 40 high school students attended a daylong seminar at the county government offices to learn about good government.

Don't you just love it?

Imagine how the conversation might have gone if the students had been there a day earlier for their good-government seminar: "Kids, please stay out of the way of those guys with the guns, carrying out all those boxes of records. They think another one of our elected officials is up to some illegal hanky-panky."

Welcome to Clark County Civics 401: "Getting the Most Out of Your Elected Position." Previous classes featured former County Commissioners Lance Malone, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, Erin Kenny and Dario Herrera.

Thursday's student seminar was part of a community leadership training program sponsored by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas. Next month they'll be over at the courthouse. (I wonder if they'll run into any politicians.)

Even before Wednesday's excitement, I planned to listen in on the student seminar. I was curious whether students felt called toward an altruistic career in county government service.

Thursday's event opened with remarks by County Manager Thom Reilly, who talked about how he spends his days.

"At 3:45 I got a phone call from the police chief," Reilly said. ''He told me that in a half-hour, there'd be a search warrant executed in the recorder's office, looking for evidence of fraud and malfeasance."

Reilly explained that because the county recorder is an elected position, the people in her office actually report to him, not Deane.

And none of those employees has been implicated in any wrongdoing, Reilly noted.

Reilly said Deane accepted his suggestion that she step aside for now. He could not order her to step down, he explained to the students, because she is accountable to voters, not him.

He also told the students that he told Deane, "You'll probably need to get an attorney."

I really doubt the students showed up Thursday morning for a good-government seminar expecting to hear the phrase, "You'll probably need to get an attorney."

And there you have it. Another day at the office, another elected official getting her records in a wringer.

The rest of the students' day at the county offices was more conventional.

Students got a tour of the place. They role-played as county officials, property owners and activists in debating where to build a new county landfill. They attended a county commissioners meeting.

They heard a panel discussion about the role of media in government reporting.

And to close their day, they listened to a handful of elected officials discuss good government. The panel included a couple of state Assembly members, a state senator, a Las Vegas councilman and the county assessor.

Clark County Recorder Frances Deane was not on the panel.

Toward the end of the presentation, Rachel Ware, a junior from Advanced Technologies Academy, raised her hand. "How can we trust you folks as elected officials?" she said.

An audible gasp filled the room. Some students whistled.

"That's an excellent question," County Assessor Mark Schofield said, jumping to his feet. "It's a problem we all deal with: If one (politician) goes down, the blemish covers us all.

"It's an unfortunate situation. I feel very bad for the official. It's a sad day when someone self-destructs," he said. "But please don't paint us all with the same broad brush."

That would have been a fine lesson to close the day for the students. Fade to dark, closing credits. And then Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly piped in.

"We're all human. You can't expect for these folks to be 100 percent perfect," he said. "In our world, I don't trust anybody."

Sadly, that may have been the real civics lesson our high school student leaders learned this week.

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