Revenue down, but Metro officers’ jobs safe, sheriff says

By Joe Schoenmann

Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie held a town-hall meeting last week, possibly the first ever held by a Clark County sheriff.

The event at Faith Lutheran Jr./Sr. High School was sparsely attended — maybe 60 people showed up, many of them police officers — but it was an eye-opener on a couple of fronts.

For one, Gillespie said a decline in property tax revenue, plus his move to cut 5 percent of his budget, means the department’s budget will be about $56.3 million less in the fiscal year beginning July 1 than in the current fiscal year. That represents roughly a 10 percent difference.

That’s huge. How will it happen?

Gillespie said Metro has been anticipating the deficit and will meet it by eliminating frozen positions, reducing holiday work hours and front-office hours, and taking other measures that will be fully presented to Metro’s Fiscal Affairs Committee in a few weeks.

One thing he made clear — repeating it no fewer than four times: None of the department’s 2,981 commissioned officers will lose their jobs.

What was the other eye-opener?

After Gillespie’s presentation, Commissioner Steve Sisolak walked up to a microphone and praised the sheriff and his staff for being so responsive, saying “no other” department head has been so forthright and quick to answer his questions.

This is a stark change from last year when Sisolak, as one of two commissioners on the Fiscal Affairs Committee, grew frustrated because he said he couldn’t get answers from Metro. At the time, Sisolak was questioning why Metro planned to spend $2.9 million on a new helicopter. He described the sheriff’s reaction to his questioning as “more like shock ... shock that anyone was even asking questions.”

Asked last week about his change in attitude toward Gillespie, Sisolak said: “It’s just changed, it really has. The sheriff and his staff are there when we need them.”

Gillespie’s next budget town hall is Feb. 22 at Sierra Vista High School.

•••

Cabbies do one thing more than perhaps any other group of workers in Las Vegas: read newspapers.

The Sun received dozens of calls after publishing on Wednesday a story on Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown’s desire to discuss the longtime practice of topless clubs giving kickbacks to cabdrivers who bring them customers.

Ninety percent of the callers were genial. The remainder were angry. All of them made a point that they wished had been included in the story about topless clubs and kickbacks.

What did they have to say?

They say the big culprits in this whole scheme are limousine drivers and casino doormen.

Cabdrivers claim that because limousines can carry many more people than a cab, those drivers have set up a system in which hotel doormen recruit customers for kickbacks.

Let’s say a limo can carry seven passengers. Getting that many riders requires a doorman to steer the men to the limo, the cabdrivers allege. The doorman helps because he knows he will get a hefty percentage of the limo driver’s kickback from the club.

If there are seven riders and the driver gets $50 each from the topless club for delivering them, that’s $350.

The cabdrivers said they are mostly excluded from this scheme.

How much money are clubs paying for customers?

A federal lawsuit about the practice alleges that some clubs pay as much as $100,000 a week, and collectively pay as much as $40 million a year.

What will the commission do to address this matter?

The County Commission isn’t scheduled to vote on anything Tuesday (the meeting starts at 9:15 a.m.); it’s just a discussion of the issue.

The discussion was prompted by unidentified topless clubs that have hired local attorney Al Marquis, who has drafted a proposed ordinance that would fine clubs $1,000 for giving kickbacks. If caught three times in a year, they could lose their licenses.

Some said Tuesday’s discussion of the matter might be postponed another two weeks.

Does Marquis’ proposal go after the clubs regardless of whether they give kickbacks to limos or cabbies?

It does. But cabdrivers are upset because the discussion on kickbacks has focused on them when feel they aren’t the primary instigators.