No money, but minority panel gets another push

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

A state commission lawmakers created to confront pressing issues facing minorities stopped meeting at least two years ago, touching off several moves to breathe life into the group.

The commission may become active early next year if those efforts succeed.

Assemblyman Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, noticed before the 2007 legislative session that the Minority Affairs Commission hadn't met since 2005.

Created two years earlier, the commission was supposed to study issues of concern to minorities as well as recommend laws, disseminate information and network with private and public agencies.

But the law creating the commission turned out to be an unfunded mandate. As the ennui of being unable to accomplish much set in, the commission stopped meeting.

"Folks dropped out," said Bert Ramos, the commission's most recent chairman. "After awhile, everybody gets tired without support."

"It's kind of been a mess," added Denis, one of three Hispanics in the Nevada Legislature.

So first the lawmaker extended the commission's life span, because it was scheduled to "sunset," or go out of existence, in June of this year. In the same bill, he placed the commission under the state Business and Industry Department - meaning there's now a place where the buck stops if we're in the same place two years from now.

Then he made sure that a newly created position, the ombudsman of consumer affairs for minorities, would spend an undefined part of his or her day assisting the Commission on Minority Affairs.

For now, that means coming up with a list of former members and seeing who wants to serve again on the commission. The Legislative Commission, which meets between legislative sessions, will then appoint new members to the Minority Affairs Commission.

Lorne J. Malkiewich, director of the Legislative Commission's administrative division, said a new Minority Affairs Commission may be in place by early next year.

But he admitted one thing still hasn't changed: There's no money.

"It's a tough sell," he said, referring to funding for the group. "They haven't done anything in years."

Ramos said it's impossible to do much without money, because even committed and qualified people won't have time to carry out studies or craft legislation without financial support.

He also said the commission is needed even more now than in 2003, with Hispanics, blacks, Asian Americans, American Indians and Pacific Islanders now making up at least 40 percent of Nevada's population.

The commission creates a forum for those groups to find common ground when it comes to political, economic and social issues, Ramos said.

Without the commission, he said, there is "no means for trying to resolve differences."

Tony Sanchez, former president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and onetime Minority Affairs Commission member, said the group "is important so we can have a voice in the process."

Ramos, noting that the well-being of some affects all, said if the commission continues failing, it will affect Nevadans who aren't minorities.

"These are folks you have to be neighbors to," he said.