WEEK IN REVIEW: CLARK COUNTY

Monday, Aug. 20, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

This week, we look at some Clark County legal actions. What's that? You didn't sign up for law school when you decided to read this column?

Well as a former law professor used to say: The law comes alive when you consider the people, and boy, do we have some people.

Our cases involve a psychic and a very untidy judge - as a defendant.

Let's begin with a question : Which Clark County district judge is most likely to be said defendant?

If you chose Elizabeth Halverson, you win some old car batteries and ratty furniture.

In December, Clark County declared Halverson's home a public nuisance and told her to clean it up. Junk covered her yard and her pool was filled with stagnant water.

Since then, the judge and the county's public response office have haggled over the cleanup. Halverson, who uses a wheelchair, has explained that she is unable to move the objects and can't get her husband to do it.

Nonetheless, she has signed an agreement that county commissioners will consider Tuesday. Under the deal, Halverson must clean up her property near U.S. 95 and Tropicana Avenue by Oct. 15, or the county will hire contractors to do it and send her the bill. The agreement bans Halverson from appealing.

It requires her to remove inoperable automobiles, bicycles, tarps, furniture, tools, automotive batteries, broken hoses, palm tree trimmings, overgrown vegetation, broken wheelchairs, oxygen tanks and other debris. She must keep her pool free of algae and mosquito infestation, repair a leak that creates a pool of water near the corner of the house, and either remove or obtain permits for electrical connections and outlets on her property.

We can imagine how all of this will feed into the campaign slogans of future election opponents.

Halverson's other big problem is that the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has suspended her , saying she poses a potential threat of serious harm to the public and to the administration of justice. She is appealing that decision to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Case No. 2 involves fortune teller Debbie Marks, who wants a psychic arts license from the county. She tried for one in April, but commissioners put off a decision after Metro Police said Marks refused to come in for questioning as part of the licensing process.

Marks' Los Angeles attorney, Barry Fisher, says she has a constitutional right to refuse questioning. He says fortune telling is a First Amendment right and has a stack of case law he says supports the argument.

The county code requires psychic arts practitioners to go through an application process that includes Metro's investigation of their "character and reputation." Fisher says courts have held that when governments issue permits for free speech activities, they are not allowed to ask those kinds of questions or a host of others. He says he has given Metro all the answers it needs.

Interestingly, the county business licensing department is siding with Marks. It issued a temporary license Aug. 2 that expires Tuesday. That decision came after considering Fisher's First Amendment arguments. We'll let you know how this one goes.

Now for some raw politics. Here are notes about County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly.

Some commissioners were a little surprised Aug. 7 when a proposal to realign commission districts fell on its face.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid had said he would support the plan if at least five of the seven commissioners went along. Everyone knew commissioners Tom Collins and Chris Giunchigliani were opposed to redrawing district boundaries, but that still left the other five commissioners, right? Wrong.

Weekly, the board's newest member, voted against the plan. Call it the Freshman Surprise.

Did he strike a back room deal with Collins and Giunchigliani? Did he want to show his independence as the new guy?

Hardly, he said. He simply had a case of redistricting fatigue.

Having just gone through a contentious redistricting as a Las Vegas city councilman, he said , he just wasn't up for it.

"With everything else I was dealing with, it just was not high on the priority list," Weekly said.

So, is redistricting dead? Not necessarily. Weekly said he might reconsider once he is better grounded in his district and more familiar with the pros and cons of the plan .

By the way, Weekly held his first town hall meeting Thursday with residents of his district. That's quite a departure from his predecessor, Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who rarely held such meetings. Atkinson Gates told the Sun in April 2006 that she stopped having meetings because no one showed up.

About 30 people turned out for Weekly's. Not bad for Clark County. Maybe that's another reason for him to keep his district boundaries intact.