Double hero: Fat-cat firefighter and tax-raising politician

By J. Patrick Coolican

Friday, July 8, 2011 | 2:05 a.m.

Oh, to be a Republican political operative for a day! What fun to plan the negative ads against John Oceguera, the outgoing Nevada Assembly speaker expected to run for Congress as a Democrat.

Firefighter. Double dipping. Vacation pay. Taxes.

Throw in some demeaning black-and-white photos and a foreboding voice, and that’s all you need.

In case you hadn’t heard, the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a libertarian think tank, revealed last week that Oceguera was drawing part of his salary as a North Las Vegas assistant fire chief while also serving as speaker this session. He did the same in 2009, when he was Democratic majority leader.

Specifically, during the legislative session that ended last month, he worked nine hours a week as a firefighter while taking 18 hours of accrued vacation time and nine hours unpaid leave. In 2009, he worked 18 hours per week as a firefighter during the legislative session, when lawmakers often work 60-hour weeks to finish the people’s business in the scant constitutionally allowed 120 days every other year.

Let’s examine Oceguera’s doings on two fronts: The merits, and the appearances.

Could he have been working nine hours per week?

According to North Las Vegas Fire Chief Al Gillespie, who composed a lengthy defense of Oceguera for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oceguera participated in weekly early-morning video conferences and wrote weekly operations reports that indicate he processed 1,900 firefighter-related emails during the session. (I have been told by legislators, lobbyists and press that Oceguera’s scheduler nixed early-morning meetings because of these conference calls.)

The chief in North Las Vegas, which has lost firefighter management to budget cuts, also says Oceguera came in nearly every weekend and was on call every weekend until early May.

Oceguera told me that the alternative would have left North Las Vegas Fire in a bind.

OK, shouldn’t the Assembly speaker focus on the job at hand, especially during the state’s unprecedented fiscal crisis?

Oceguera said he’s been a multitasker since holding down two or three jobs trying to make ends meet as a kid. He went to law school at night while working during the day, as well. He’s a reliable hard worker, he repeated: He said he’s called in sick three or four times in 20 years. Oceguera made about $150,000 in pay and benefits in North Las Vegas in 2010.

Barbara Buckley, who was Assembly speaker when Oceguera was majority leader, noted that Oceguera had a new family in 2009 and was newly ensconced in the Fire Department’s leadership and was understandably eager to please the chief. The reality of a part-time, barely paid Legislature is that people have jobs, and if they’re not rich, they have to support themselves, including when they’re in session.

As a public employee, should Oceguera be negotiating and voting on issues that relate to public employees? An attorney general’s ruling states that public employees can legislate on all issues, so long as they apply to a whole class of Nevadans, such as all firefighters, and not just one specific firefighter.

The problem of public workers legislating on issues that affect them — an apparent conflict of interest — is another staple of the “citizen Legislature,” but it applies to legislators from the private sector, as well. A group of Assembly Republicans with contracting businesses were deeply involved in legislation this session on settling construction defect disputes. Former state Sen. Mark Amodei, a Republican running for Congress, once doubled up as president of the Nevada Mining Association, making him what a colleague called, “lobbyator.”

But that’s all neither here nor there. Our community, which has suffered as much or more as any in the nation during the recession, is further pilloried with regular reports of endless firefighter overtime, six-figure firefighter salaries, and, among some Clark County firefighters, scandalous sick time abuse.

It’s in light of this that we can say Oceguera has made a bone-headed unforced error.(And not the only one lately — he didn’t sign legislative documents before he left for vacation to Hawaii. He told me the documents weren’t ready for signing when it was time to leave for R&R. Whatever. Then there was the good times at the end of the session in a Carson City wine bar, where, contrary to reports in the RJ, he and friends did not pass around and sign a bottle of Dom Perignon, but, rather, merely a bottle of celebratory wine. Democrats are wine people, not Dom people!)

The story has all the makings of public outrage to be used to great effect by the anti-government crowd: The hard-to-believe tale that a politician was also doing his regular job as a public employee; the overpaid firefighter; the overly generous vacation benefits he’s using up while in Carson City trying to raise taxes.

The slow and weak response hasn’t helped. Trotting out the fire chief with his full-throated defense of Oceguera only raised questions about who’s really in charge. (Oceguera said he looked at the chief’s response for accuracy, but made no edits.)

But, you say, Oceguera is in North Las Vegas, not Clark County where all the sick time abuse occurred.

First, who cares? People don’t know or distinguish between one or another fire agency, as much as they should. (Also, just FYI: Oceguera may not call in sick, but North Las Vegas firefighters called in sick an average of 111 hours last year, which in the real world is 13 days at eight hours per day. But in firefighter world, where everything is groovy, 111 hours is only 4.5 “days,” because their work “day” is 24 hours long.)

Most firefighters — however overpaid they may be — are hardworking and perform an important service, and the same goes with the vast majority of teachers and social workers and other public employees.

Oceguera has served, unwittingly or not, to further damage their already maligned reputations.

And as for Oceguera getting to Congress? Doubtful.

Update: I have updated this column to reflect a call Oceguera made to me on Friday. He said the report in the RJ saying he celebrated the end of the legislative session with a $400 bottle of Dom Perignon was incorrect. He said it was a bottle of wine. He also said reports about legislative documents having to be shipped to him in Hawaii were unfair because the documents weren’t ready for his signature when he left Carson City.