Sheriff to talk the talk with Gibbons

Thursday, June 14, 2007 | 8:03 a.m.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie heads into a meeting with Gov. Jim Gibbons on Friday confident he'll be able to establish once and for all that Southern Nevada should anchor the state's anti-terrorism intelligence gathering efforts.

"I want to get us all on the same sheet of music," Gillespie told the Nevada Homeland Security Commission on Wednesday.

The commission meeting came amid a continuing tug of wills between the Gibbons administration and local law enforcement officials over the best location for the so-called "fusion center" that will spearhead Nevada's anti-terrorism program.

The federally funded Southern Nevada Counter-Terrorism Center is expected to open this summer at an undisclosed 24,000-square-foot facility in the Las Vegas Valley.

More than 60 Metro Police detectives, analysts and support staff will work out of the high-tech center, designed to better coordinate the collection and dissemination of intelligence in the war on terrorism. Many local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Homeland Security Department, also plan to station representatives there.

"We're confident that we've got a good plan," Metro Lt. Tom Monahan, Gillespie's anti-terrorism point man, said after the meeting. "A lot of folks throughout the state participated in developing it."

Gibbons sparked controversy during the recent legislative session when he sought more than $600,000 to create a small-scale fusion center in Carson City to serve as the state's primary intelligence gathering operation - a plan that would undermine the authority of the Las Vegas operation to deal with federal homeland security officials.

Gillespie and other top law enforcement officials objected to Gibbons' proposal, arguing that Las Vegas, where most of the potential threats and anti-terrorism resources are, is best suited to be the state's lead fusion center.

The governor's plan ran into opposition in the Legislature, but lawmakers ultimately set aside the money Gibbons requested on the condition that he work with Gillespie and other law enforcement officials to find the best use for it in the fusion center process.

The Legislature's Interim Finance Committee, which meets between sessions, will have authority to hand out the money. There is little chance that lawmakers will agree to fund a central fusion hub in Carson City, however, as long as there is opposition from law enforcement.

Joining Gillespie at Friday's meeting with Gibbons in Carson City will be Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley, who said he supports making Southern Nevada the state's main fusion center. Haley is establishing a similar but smaller federally funded counterterrorism hub in Reno that will work closely with the Las Vegas center.

Gillespie and Haley said they don't believe Gibbons will want to duplicate any operations already in development.

Gillespie's pitch to Gibbons will essentially be the presentation that Monahan made Wednesday to the Homeland Security Commission, explaining the two years of delicate and complicated work authorities here have put into an intelligence operation that will cross multiple jurisdictional lines.

Members of the private sector, including the gaming industry, with its 6,700 private security officers, also will be part of the Las Vegas center.

The fusion centers, Monahan said, are viewed as a strategy to improve Nevada's chances of preventing a terrorist attack.

"If we are responding to a terrorist act, we have already lost," he said.