A real transition

Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Wildlife Department, arrived at the governor’s office recently to meet with Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval’s transition team. But Mayer was intercepted before he could get to the meeting.

Robin Reedy, outgoing Gov. Jim Gibbons’ chief of staff, gave Mayer a termination letter, ending his employment immediately.

Many Carson City observers were understandably stunned. The lame duck governor sacked Mayer, whom he appointed at the start of his term, just five weeks before he leaves office. Mayer was highly regarded and was viewed as one of Gibbons’ better appointments.

Reedy declined to comment. In an e-mail to the Associated Press, she said, “The director works at the pleasure of the governor, and we will not comment further on personnel-related matters.”

But, as Jon Ralston reported in his Flash e-mail newsletter, some of Gibbons’ cronies on the commission had complained to the governor about Mayer, who had raised issues about how the commission operated and questioned whether commissioners were overstepping their legal limits.

Chris MacKenzie, a former chairman of the wildlife commission, bluntly told the AP that Mayer’s firing was a “parting gift” to Gibbons’ appointees on the commission. Gibbons could conceivably appoint someone before his term is up, thus leaving office much the way he entered it.

He was secretly sworn in just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2007, saying he needed to make two vital homeland security appointments for the good of the state. But that was just a ruse — he took the quickie oath of office to usurp an appointment his predecessor made to the state Gaming Control Board and make his own.

Since then, the Gibbons administration has been marked by erratic action. He didn’t work well, if at all, with the Legislature, and his appointments weren’t often well conceived. He tried to put a supporter of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump on the state board that fights it, and he appointed an executive of a subprime mortgage lender to lead the watchdog agency that is supposed to regulate mortgage companies. In the meantime, his office staff was in a near constant state of turnover.

In the weeks since his election, Sandoval is showing what we hope will be a drastic — and welcome — change in the governor’s office. The governor-elect has been deliberate and made some thoughtful appointments. His new chief of staff, Heidi Gansert, brings strong experience in Carson City. She was the well-regarded Republican leader in the Assembly, and that will help Sandoval with his legislative agenda.

He has also hired childhood friend Dale Erquiaga, a former deputy secretary of state and Clark County School District official, as a chief adviser. And Terri Janison, who is resigning as president of the Clark County School Board, will lead Sandoval’s Southern Nevada office.

Sandoval has also moved to retain several respected state department heads, including Andrew Clinger, the state’s budget director, Mike Willden, head of Health and Human Services, and Susan Martinovich, the Transportation Department chief.

But the governor’s office needs more than good people — it needs the right policies. Sandoval can take a lesson from recent history. Gibbons’ largest problem wasn’t his staff, it was his adherence to a blind and shallow ideology, which led the state down the wrong path. Gibbons’ predecessor, Kenny Guinn, couldn’t have been more different. Guinn, whom Sandoval thought highly of, immersed himself in the details and sought ways to work with others to push the state forward.

Sandoval will inherit a budget that is expected to have a $3 billion shortfall over the next two years, and the budget isn’t, as some people suggest, bloated with fat. Sandoval has been vague about his plans for the budget, and the no-new-taxes pledge he made during the campaign will limit his options.

The governor-elect knows that governing is far different from campaigning, and he has been wise to find good people. But as he considers the issues the state faces, he would do well to follow the example of Guinn, not Gibbons.