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Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen responds to a question Tuesday. He defended two recent City Council sessions held in private.
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Council briefed on Lake Las Vegas bankruptcy (9-15-2009)
- March reappointed, sworn in on Henderson City Council (7-21-2009)
Beyond the Sun
Steve Kirk
Kathleen Boutin
The city of Henderson appears to be getting used to conducting important business in private.
Secret meetings or votes by the Henderson City Council have occurred twice in the past several months.
In one of those instances, the attorney general’s office ruled the city violated the state’s open meeting law when it voted secretly to fill a council seat. In the other, two council members objected to the majority decision to hold a meeting on a Lake Las Vegas bankruptcy matter out of public view.
In both cases Mayor Andy Hafen, elected to the post by a razor-thin margin in June, supported the decision to conduct business in private.
“I think the thing the public really wants to be assured of is that there are no — quote-unquote — backroom dealings,” Hafen said Tuesday. “I think that’s what the public has the most distaste for, (the thought) of public officials sitting in the back room, smoking cigars and making deals. And certainly that was the furthest thing from this meeting.”
In the first instance, the council in a special meeting in July voted twice to determine who would fill the seat vacated by Hafen’s election. The votes were to narrow a list of 14 candidates and then make a selection by ranking the remaining candidates.
Debra March was chosen to fill the seat. But council members did not attach their names to either of the ballots — meaning there was no way to know which council member supported which candidate.
This prompted the Las Vegas Review-Journal to file a complaint with the state attorney general’s office, claiming the council had violated the state’s open meeting law. The attorney general agreed.
The law “requires public disclosure of each member’s vote so that the public will know how each member voted,” wrote Senior Deputy Attorney General George Taylor in an opinion issued this month. “Selection ballots should have been signed and the identity of the council member made known,” Taylor wrote.
(After the complaint was filed, council members at a subsequent meeting disclosed whom they had voted for.)
Meanwhile, the council in September decided in a 3-2 vote to hold a hearing on Lake Las Vegas resort bankruptcy proceedings behind closed doors. City Attorney Elizabeth Quillin advised the council to hold the meeting in private, and Hafen claimed that attorney-client privilege applied because the city is one of many creditors owed millions of dollars.
But the move proved contentious, as both council members who voted no — Steve Kirk, Hafen’s mayoral race opponent, and Kathleen Boutin — spoke out.
“I’ve been brought up to speed and we’ve never gone into closed session for it,” Kirk said.
In an interview Tuesday, Hafen defended the council’s actions in both instances. He added that neither case contradicted one of his campaign themes, encapsulated on his campaign Web site: “I want decisions to be transparent.”
Regarding the Lake Las Vegas vote, he said discussions about legal strategy are inherently attorney-client matters.
“Certainly, the city has a stake in these bankruptcy proceedings,” Hafen said. “And of course it’s so complicated, and there are several parties, that I just felt, and the city attorney advised us, that we should go into closed session.”
In the matter of March’s appointment to the council, Hafen said the situation was unusual so he asked the city clerk’s office for guidance. He said he didn’t think the council violated the open meeting law, but that it didn’t follow one of the law’s procedures — requiring revelation of each council members’ vote — a situation eventually rectified.
Ultimately, Hafen said, these instances of the council conducting business outside public view shouldn’t be a cause for concern. No constituents have approached him about it, he noted.
But Boutin, the city’s newest elected council member, disagreed.
“I regret having done anything that might have violated the public trust,” said Boutin, who noted that she was the lone vote to fill Hafen’s seat through an election as opposed to a council appointment.
In hindsight, she said, she wishes she had fought harder for an election, in part so that such an episode involving secret ballots could be avoided.
“My motto is, if we don’t want the general public knowing about it, we shouldn’t be doing it,” Boutin said.
Well, I'm glad that we elected Kathleen Boutin to the council. She seems like the only person there that we the Henderson residents can really trust. I was really hoping for better from Hafen, and I think Kirk is just pulling this stunt now to make us forget about all his shady real estate wheelin' & dealin' revealed during the campaign (this gives him something good to talk about if he runs for higher office again).
Kathleen Boutin and Steve Kirk are the only two people who have any integrity. The others just want business as usual. Boutin is a class act and has a bright future, and it will be sad to see Kirk leave. He should have been mayor. We are lucky they are there
Politics at its best, closed door meetings! Not all of us elected Ms. Boutin to the council but I wish she would have stuck to her guns and not backed down. We will never have a politician willing to stand up for the general public. If her motto is what she stated above then why did she back away? Campaign contributions maybe... We will never know!
Piece of an RJ article Aug 3, 2008
"At the moment, Lake Las Vegas is delinquent on more than $2.2 million in improvement district payments to the city. The combined payoff amount for bonds associated with the three districts is about $33.1 million.
Ultimately, though, the bonds are secured against property at Lake Las Vegas, Shauna Hughes said. "The city is never on the hook for a dime."
Really? Gee, I wonder what your secret meeting was about? Tee times at the 2 closed golf courses? It's obvious that the taxpayer is going to get stuck here. LLV is BK, and people are defaulting on their homes in the hundreds. Property values have gone down 50-70% easy. And don't forget the hefty HOA fees, at least 5G a year. Check out realtytrac.com, and type in 89011, and see the foreclosures light up your screen. Will the banks happily pay the assessments due the city? Hah! The Ritz and Loew's went BK, Ritz is running only because the bank ended up with it.
I believe Ms. Hughes, yes a lawyer, took an early "buy-out" in 2009. I guess we were on the hook for more dimes than she thought, ergo secret meetings. Maybe she was afraid that she couldn't hide behind former Mayor Jim Gibson's skirt any longer.
Yes, secret meetings are so necessary in Henderson. Watch out Kathy B., you need to play the game with the dark side, where "business as usual" is the City motto.
hafen,i wonder if he's mormon
I hope the entire council follows Boutin's motto. There is no need for these closed door meetings. Why not do the business in public. Boutin is right, what do they have to hide?
Yes. Let's all watch Kathleen carefully so we can see what her and her boyfriend are really up to. (nice fake posts from your university friends).
Just keep all the meetings open. number of problems solved including removing an opportunity for less than genuine postulating.
I hope they aren't preparing some bailout package for Lake Las Vegas.
I wonder why this article didn't mention the charter violation on the table as noted in this article:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/corrective-acti...
Not only did the secret ballot get Ms. March appointed, it appears that second vote that got her officially appointed violates the city charters timeline to appoint. She should be pulled and an election held.
Ms. Boutin has an oppertunity to do what is right. While she can dwell on the past and what she could have done, she can stand up now and do what should be done.
Ms. Boutin, put an item on the agenda to pull Ms. March and have an election to clear up the controversy. Solutions can be simple if you truly want to solve the problems at hand.
These aren't the only secret meeting Mayor Hafen has had.
"In a recent conversation, Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen wondered why anyone would object to such meetings [held outside the public eye]. Openly acknowledging he had met with Trustee Deanna Wright this way, he said such meetings provide elected officials the opportunity to work collaboratively to define common needs, identify available resources, prevent duplicated services and develop cooperative solutions -- all in the interest of saving taxpayer dollars, of course.
Notably, however, Wright has -- at least to this point -- made no 'full report at an open board meeting' on her discussions with the Henderson mayor.
Furthermore, Nevada law already offers opportunity for collaborative communication between local entities in an open and publicly noticed forum."
http://www.npri.org/publications/ccsd-re...
As usual, Bdover aka NedNougat exaggerates everything about Lake Las Vegas. As BlondeinGV pointed out in recent LVSUN.com posting, there are only a few foreclosed homes in LLV. They have ALL been bought up! The banks have paid ALL of the back HOA dues, the new owners can afford the payments and HOA dues and things are looking up!
Well, don't believe me, go to Realtor.com. Put in the zip code 89011, and click on recent sales and you will see for yourself. In V, nearly ALL SOLD, only 2 or 3 for sale TOTAL!, Viera Condos, the same thing. Realtytrac is lagging behind on their stats. My condo still shows active on Realtytrac and it's been sold for months. You have to go to the MLS for the actual #'s. (sorry to disappoint you Bdover/NegNougat)
The $5k a year Bdover mentions in HOA dues is ONLY on the Hotel Condos and those dues include Electric, cable, internet etc. Not so bad actually. (again, boo hoo Bdover)
Southshore Golf club has re-opened. Of course, when there is good news, you never hear a peep about that from the usual peanut gallery here. My rental condo continues to have strong rentals and I hear that the village is hosting a convention in early December and is nearly booked.
Readers should also note that only the Lake Las Vegas developer,mostly for the undeveloped property has filed bankruptcy. This is due to Credit Suisse giving an equity loan to the former owners. This is NOT the LLV Master Association or the individual H/O Associations or Montelago Village.
The ice skating rink is back on the lake. Go out and enjoy!:) Happy Holidays everyone!
BlondeinGV? Are you out there? Care to back me up with current LLV stats?
Another typical example of the closed door meetings. In the last council meeting when the budget was being discussed, Steve Hanson (Finance Director) mentioned that he had met with the council members and the Mayor week before in private and discussed in detail what is going on with the budget and where they will be making cuts. But at the council meeting, they only show a summary statistics, never going into detail. On top, they schedule these AFTER the public comments section so that no one from the public can ask questions (a member of the public wanted to ask a question and was told by Mayor himself to have a seat and there is no public comments at that time).
So, even though they have an open meeting, they basically hide the information from the residents and the media.