County wants to cut some of mama’s apron strings

Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.

Clark County occupies an area bigger than New Jersey and boasts one of the most recognizable stretches of real estate - the Las Vegas Strip - in the world.

It is a county with a $5.9 billion annual budget. It is a county with 1.8 million residents, a number growing by 5,000 monthly.

And it is also a county that cannot even tow cars from its own parking lot.

That's because the county lacks home rule, requiring it to check in with Carson City before doing many routine things, large and small.

As a result, Clark County, for all its size, rapid growth and fame, finds itself laboring under the kind of governmental constraints that would be an embarrassment in Mayberry.

Indeed, in many ways, Clark County is like a full-grown adult whose overprotective parents - state lawmakers - insist on holding his hand as he crosses the street.

"I've heard that analogy used," Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas, said.

When asked whether most lawmakers feel that way, Parks, chairman of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee, added: "I'll speak for myself and only say that's pretty much what I've seen."

A look at the county's bill request package for the 2007 Legislature reveals the firm grip that the state maintains on county government. One bill proposed by the county asks lawmakers to allow the county to tow cars from its own parking lots.

That indignity was spawned by the county's attempt to tow a lawyer's vehicle, only to have the lawyer point out that state law does not expressly grant counties the authority to tow cars from public parking lots. The district attorney's office flipped through state code and found the lawyer was correct.

"If the law doesn't specifically say we can, then we can't," said Jim Spinello, the county's assistant director of administrative services.

It's an old common-law principle called Dillon's Rule, named after the judge who came up with it in 1886 - 23 years before Clark County was founded.

Judge John Dillon, an Iowa Supreme Court justice who distrusted local government because of the power wielded by that era's corrupt political machines, ruled that local governments have only those powers specifically granted by the state.

While many states follow Dillon's Rule to some degree, many also grant counties some degree of home rule. The Nevada Legislature, however, has been particularly careful to keep the reins on county government.

The conflict between the valley's growth and the county's inability to move forward on important issues without state approval was clear during Sheriff Bill Young's three-year crusade for a sales tax increase to hire more police.

While most residents agreed that the county's rapid growth necessitated more funding for additional police, the process was slower than it would have been in many states because Clark County lacks home rule in the area of raising taxes.

In November 2004, even though Clark County voters approved an 0.25 percent sales tax increase, the county was helpless to institute the tax. Instead, the county ballot question served as merely an advisory vote for state legislators, who had the ultimate say on the issue.

The process delayed implementation of the tax because legislators did not meet until 2005. Although state lawmakers ultimately approved the increase, it did not take effect until nearly one year after the residents it would affect - and who would be paying it - passed it.

Attempts to give Nevada counties more home rule have failed. A bill submitted by the Nevada Association of Counties during the 2005 legislative session that would have abolished Dillon's Rule for counties failed to receive a committee hearing. The group plans to resubmit that proposal next year.

"They have to be practical," Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said of county officials. "Home rule has not passed. If they haven't been successful, that might be a sign they won't be successful this time."

The actions of some former Clark County commissioners - two of whom recently received multiyear prison sentences for accepting bribes from a strip club owner - will not help the renewed push for home rule.

"I think we have a great group of commissioners now but that hasn't always been the case," Buckley said. "What's the harm to make sure there is a check-and-balance system and some sort of oversight?"

The harm, home rule proponents say, comes when a largely urban Clark County must wait two years between legislative sessions to get mundane issues such as car-towing approved by the Legislature.

"The car-towing is a classic example," said Bob Hadfield, interim executive director of the Nevada Association of Counties.

County officials say Dillon's Rule pops up in all kinds of frustrating places. While it can slow down major initiatives such as tax increases, it's the smaller issues such as animal control that make Dillon's Rule a constant pest.

"We're providing urban and municipal services much like a city would," Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid said. "I think it is totally unusual for a county this large and complex to have this relationship with state government."

Some officials say they see a slow progression toward giving Clark County more autonomy. But they emphasize that slow is the operative word.

"It's long overdue to have this conversation," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, who is straddling the fence between state and county government after winning the Democratic primary race for Clark County Commission District E.

"Those closest to the job should be the ones doing the job," she added.

While issues of trust between state and county remain, Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, said Clark County's growth will eventually force state lawmakers to acknowledge that the county needs to be given more authority.

Hardy, who is also a physician, plans to propose legislation that would expressly permit counties in Nevada to participate in a discount prescription-drug program sponsored by the National Association of Counties.

Under the program, which many counties across the nation have adopted without permission from state legislators, county residents could receive a card worth 7 percent to 20 percent discounts on prescriptions.

Issues such as that will soon have citizens and their local government representatives pushing for changes on the home rule front, Hardy said.

"I think you are going to see more and more pressure to allow counties and cities to do more things that have been traditionally reserved for the state," he said. "I think you are going to see the nibbling, and then that may come to fruition."