Nor'Town: Politics in North Las Vegas, Nevada

This Ain't Mikey's City Council Anymore

The ouster of City Manager Gregory Rose seems to have been a full-out rebellion against the so far short lived reign of mayor Shari Buck.

It was striking that the mayor was unable to cajole even one of her companions on the City Council to vote for Rose. It's been well known for a while that there was no love lost between Mr. Rose and council members William Robinson and Robert Eliason, both of whom voted against the lucrative enhancements to Mr. Rose's contract. (Sun) Richard Cherchio dissatisfaction with Mr. Rose was evident more recently apparently due to the wrangling over the "More Cops" fund. (KLAS)

Nonetheless, the mayor was not even able to convince Anita Wood or Mr. Cherchio to support Gregory Rose. This despite their votes to support his annual performance review in August, 2009. (Sun)

The shift raises the question of just how much political power will the mayor be able to wield. Will the rest of the council form it's own powerbase and leave the mayor to repeat her petulant phrase from just prior to the Rose vote: "do what you're going to do"?

So, this ain't mayor Mike Montandon's city council anymore. And it may not even be Shari Buck's.

On another note: The more I think about it, the idea that Mr. Rose should simply be let go so that the city can get the sorry affair "behind us" serves the interests of everyone involved--except those of voters. Voters will eventually face the difficult question, and responsibility, of deciding who will be the best mayor or councilperson for their ward, and it is extremely relevant to that question if a candidate aided and abetted Mr. Rose in some potentially illegal bookkeeping. Voters, therefore, need to resolve the very question council wishes to avoid: Did Mr. Rose engage in any illegal activities or not? And if he did, did anyone on council know about it?

Forgetting the affair may be good for council, but it's not so good for the rest of us.

It's "Blame the Help" Day at City Council!

AH. Nothing says "Christmas" better than a pink slip!

Yes, after a lovely tree lighting ceremony and cookies, City Council bellies up to the bar today, most likely to fire the current city manager Gregory Rose, hand him his $337,000 in parting gifts (thanks for playing, Mr. Rose!), and pick a temp to fill his shoes until it's time to play "Name That Scapegoat" all over again. (Agenda)

Now, it's all fun and games to give Mr. Rose the boot assuming he in fact did mis-appropriate that "More Cops" money. (RJ) Still, it is hard to believe that the folks who are ultimately responsible for the functioning of the city and its budget, i.e., the current mayor and her immediate predecessor, didn't know anything about it.

And if they didn't? Then it looks like they failed in their oversight jobs.

Either way, the removal of Mr. Rose should not end the matter. Every Nor'Townie should still be asking: what did the mayor know, and when did she know it? And if she didn't know it, why didn't she?

As for her predecessor? Well, "More Cops" will give his opponents in the gubernatorial race something to talk about it, won't it? How about "Boy Scout Botches Budgets"?

Say, isn't it odd that the "Budget Presentation" is "award winning"? (NLV) Yep. It's a Very Nice Budget. As long as you don't read it.

Nor'Town: Nevada's Laughingstock

Sigh. Everybody's making fun of us. From Jon Ralston's column about what prominent Nevadans have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving:

North Las Vegas Manager Greg Rose: For a City Council dumb enough and wasteful enough to have given me a contract that forces the city to pay me $300,000 just to be on my way. (Sun)

And in the "numbers" sidebar of the Review-Journal:

$337,000
How much severance money North Las Vegas will have to pay if the City Council votes Wednesday to part company with City Manager Gregory Rose. (RJ)

Okay. Everybody raise your hand if you think it's time to let Las Vegas annex Nor'Town.

Nor'Town Taxpayers Take The Hurt Out Of Manager's Possible Dismissal

Whoa! Where else do you get $337,000 for messing up? Besides Goldman Sachs, I mean.

$337,000 is  how much it's going to cost Nor'Town to get rid of its current City Manager Gregory Rose. (RJ) City Council will be voting on the "settlement" at the December 2nd meeting, barring postponement.

Mayor Buck is opposed because that's quite a chunk of change in hard times. However, voting against the settlement means that Rose would remain city manager, despite the current ruckus over the "More Cops" money. Rose is alleged to have used "More Cops" money to fund veteran officers when the money was slated for new hires only.

Mayor Buck, naturally, supported the manager's generous severance package back when council handed it to him. (Nor'Town) So, hey, if she doesn't want the city to take the hit, maybe she should donate the money?

Or, how about this? The mayor could take responsibility as Nor'Town's highest official for the "More Cops" mess up and resign. Her predecessor Mike Montandon could, too, by apologizing to the city, abandoning all current and future campaigns for public office, and pay Rose's severance out of his gubernatorial campaign fund.

But, wait, what am I saying? Taxpayers always end up paying for politicians' mistakes. That's been a basic rule of politics since back in the days of Babylon.

Just a Coding Error

So, executive-leaving Nor'Town City Manager characterized the use of "More Cops" funds to support cops already on the force.

"The issue is a simple coding error. It's just paperwork," City Manager Gregory Rose said earlier this month. (RJ)

However, the "More Cops" funds, we are told, are meant only to support new hires in an effort to increase the force. They should not be used as a bookkeeping tool to shuffle funds from one account to another in tough economic times.

The, dare we say, scandal is beginning to make everyone look bad. We learn: Nor'Town Chief of police Joseph Forti knew about the shift of funds, although he has denied it elsewhere. And the assistant chief says they knew about it in early 2009.

So, one wonders, when did Mayor Shari Buck, who's supposed to be in charge of the such goings on, know about it? Or are we to believe she doesn't know what's going on in her City Hall?

We also learn that Assemblyperson Marilyn Kirkpatrick "has long questioned why North Las Vegas hasn't hired more police officers with More Cops money."

Really? When did she plan to share those concerns with her constituents?

One thing is clear, though, Richard Cherchio has found an issue for his campaign coming up in early 2011. So, I'm guessing "More Cops" won't be going away anytime soon. I wonder if the mayor will be endorsing his campaign?

City Manager Gregory Rose Out Over "More Cops"??

Channel 8 is reporting that Nor'Town City Manager Gregory Rose is on paid leave and may be leaving the city permanently. (VegasNow) TeeVee folk think it's because of the missing "More Cops" money, but Rose has apparently denied it.

More about missing "More Cops" money:

• I-Team: Tax Money for More Police Falls Short in NLV
• I-Team: City Councilman Questions More Cops Spending
• I-Team: Sheriff Questions Use of 'More Cops' Money

[UPDATE: Let the baseless speculation begin! Lots of questions about the repercussions of this. The shifting of existing police to the "More Cops' money--a violation of the goals of the program--started at least a year ago. The Mayor at the time was Mike Montandon.

Nonetheless, whether we're talking Montandon or Mayor Buck, the question is: what did the mayors know about this and when did they know it?

If Buck knew about this, should she tender her resignation?

If she didn't know about it, then why not? Isn't it her job to monitor the City Manager?

What happens to Montandon's run for Governor, since this was happening on his watch? Surely opponents will want to connect him with the "More Cops" money.

It's been clear for a long time that Councilguys Robert Eliason and William Robinson would happily have voted Rose out of the City Manager's position. The mayor was solidly behind him while, it seemed to me anyways, that Richard Cherchio  and Anita Wood supported Rose mainly because they were newbies who didn't want to make a severe change so early in their new positions. Judging from Cherchio's remarks here, however, I suspect there are now at least three votes against Rose, which, of course, is a majority.]

Condemning Condemnations

I had a feeling when I saw Review Journal reporters huddled around an angry homeowner at the North Las Vegas City Council meeting last week that the RJ would be posting a story about the evil condemnations on the 5th street corridor. Yup, I called it. (RJ,NorV) Except the next day the Editorial Bored [sic] took it all back and told us it was all okay. (RJ)

Now, I don't really have a side on this issue. Yes, fixing up 5th street, especially the southern portions, can only be a good thing. And, yes, taking folks homes for the purpose doesn't seem so good.

But I will give the city this. They were giving homeowners ample opportunity to do a deal. The city attorney was willing to hold off filing the condemnation papers for a month to give homeowners even more time.

Anyways, the high point of the whole affair was when the Mayor had to intercede to keep Shari Buck from ripping some homeowner a new one in the midst of a heated discussion on the issue. Now, I'm not saying the homeowner didn't deserve it. Sometimes folks stand in front of the council and don't seem to realize that the council had pretty much given them everything they wanted. Such seemed to be the case that night and I suspect most of the council were a bit peeved at the whole mess. Still, Buck let the guy have it, and indeed, I suspect the lawyer-lobbyists and myself were half hoping she'd leap over the dais and show us a real fight. Alas, such was not to be.

It remains to be seen if the the condemnations have much of an effect on the upcoming mayoral election. William Robinson was the only council member to vote against the property condemnations. Perhaps he thinks it will help him win support from the southern, "old town" folks, where his home ward is, and who are most effected by the current round of condemnations. Shari Buck and Stephanie Smith with more northally wards, may fill more insulated by unhappy southerners.

Other high points:

• A concerned citizen named Dick Sadler commented on the search for a new police cheif after the former chief was rather unceremoniously given the boot. He was especially concerned about the need for a nation-wide search, given that, according to him, there were four officers on the force capable of the job. William Robinson took the opportunity to state that he was against spending money on a search outside of the city. The Mayor assured us that there was "intense discussion" among council members about the case. That certainly is part of the problem. There may be lots of "intense discussion" but all of it has been behind closed doors. City manager Gregory Rose assured us that he will be discussing the matter with many segments of the population, but that he didn't yet know what the process would be for the job search. Welcome to the club, Mr. Manager. The Northern View actually has more on the story. We learn: that city manager Gregory Rose has already contracted a hot shot firm for the job search. From California, no less. Sigh. No Nor'Town recruiting firms available?? We also learn: Paresi is still on the city payroll. One for the price of. two! (NorV)
  
• A proposal to shuffle staff positions was tabled. Apparently the idea was to create a position for some kind of liaison person, either between council and the Manager or council and constituents. It wasn't entirely clear which. Mr. Robinson seemed to take the first position. Ms. Buck took the latter and said she was against, arguing there shouldn't be another layer of government between council members and their constituents. She felt the liaison would be doing a job that council members should instead be doing--communicating with their constituents. Frankly, Mr. Robinson should probably give up on the idea of a liaison between council and the Manager. Now that the Manager has pretty much usurped Council's authority, he won't need to be bothered with their petty concerns in any case.

Just Rewards

So, what do you give a City Manager who sends a vaguely threatening letter which clearly favored the incumbent to Nor'Towners in the midst of a heated campaign?

A raise, of course. (Sun) Just Shari Buck's way of saying, heckofajob, Greg!

What City Manager Gregory Rose really needs is a trip to the Nevada Ethics Commission. There's a complaint form and some instructions in case anybody is interested.

Who's Being Dense?

During the April 4th City Council meeting, the City Council voted 3 to 1 with one absentee to shove high density housing into the Park Highlands area (Ordinance 2357, p. 10 of the action report).

One resident who spoke against the zoning proposal because of the "density increases" was unhappy that the decision had "already been made" long before he and members of his community could contest them.

Mayor Mike upbraided the speaker because he claimed the city council had not really increased the density because the zoning was all consistent with the "Comprehensive Plan" for the area which the city passed in May 3rd, 2006.

Well, let's play semantics with the Mayor. Yes, the city increased the density from what was typical for the areas neighboring the new Olympia developments. Those tended to be single family dwellings and ranches. And so the city council did it's usual thing of relying on the apathy of citizens to propose plans that, admittedly, the citizens ignored.

And the discomfort of citizens with the density is hardly new. If you have a look at the minutes for the May 3rd, 2006 meeting, you'll find--citizens voicing concerns about density in the Olympia development. Even perennial candidate for the Assembly Angelo Carvalho, who hasn't even bothered to take down his campaign site, had questions about the density. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Carvalho will change his mind about that given his last campaign was heavily funded by monies funneled in from Utah by the mayor. Note that Mr. Eliason was the single nay vote.

Now the Mayor pretends that the "Comprehensive Plan" is engraved in stone tablets, and like an old testament patriarch, he wields it to batter any one who dares voice opposition.

Indeed, timed perfectly to arrive just before the recent Ward 4 election, City Manager Gregory Rose sent out a missive to members of the North Las Vegas Alliance of Homeowners Association and Concerned Citizens--yup, Cherchio's group--chiding them for daring to question the "Comprehensive Plan" in minutes from one of their meetings.

Why not drag the group before the Ministry of Re-education for thinking thoughts and speaking words contrary to city propaganda, Mr. Rose? And I certainly hope there is no evidence that the Manager sent out the letter at the request of Councilperson Shari Buck. Using city funds on the behest of a City Council member on the eve of an election to frighten political opponents with vague threats from the City Manager's office, well, surely Nor'Town politics would never sink so low.

Mr. Rose also took the group to task for claiming that a hastily-called City Council meeting was a "surprise." His evidence that it wasn't a "surprise"? It had been thumb-tacked to the wall of the library in accord with the State's minimalist open-meeting laws.  Perhaps the City Council should consider an ordinance to the effect that it must give at least a week's notice for any "special" meetings of the Council.

Plans were made to be changed, and indeed, zonings for lesser densities may be as consistent with the "Comprehensive Plan" as those the City Council supported. The Mayor should break the tablets and start over. And this time, he should listen to his citizens and not the campaign contributions of big developers when deciding the fate of our city.