Where Exactly Are The Responsibilities Of Our Elected Officials When Serving On Boards?

Large Amounts Of Money Pass Hands --- Is This Misplaced Responsibility Or Lack Of Concern?

by Johnny Gunn

We are told by many quasi-governmental agencies that it isn't necessary for them to have to be answerable to the state Public Service Commission (PUC) because their own board of directors is made up of elected officials, that they are already answerable to the public. But are they really? Looking at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) mess that could end up costing taxpayers in southern Nevada millions of dollars, we have to wonder.

Looking at how money is spent by the Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) we have to wonder some more. Elected officials often don't even attend meetings, sending someone who has no authority to be there in the first place, and can't vote on tax issues.

The question then is this: should the elected officials that serve on these boards be more responsible to the board they serve, or should they be more responsible to the electorate that gave them their job in the first place? Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman complains that the LVCVA president pulled a fast one and sold the slogan "What happens here stays here" to an advertising and public relations firm for $1 U.S. But we are also told that the item was actually on the agenda and nobody asked for an explanation or reading of the sales document.

The president of the LVCVA may have pulled a fast one, but he did it because the board of directors was taking a fast nap. More than just the mayor, several board members have muttered they should have been told of the sale in advance. So items are passed, judgements are not made, millions of dollars are lost, and the elected official sitting on the board says, in reality, "it didn't happen on my shift."

Like hell it didn't.

When the authority was planned the idea of elected officials sitting on the board of directors was to give the board a sense of direction from the various political entities, not just for them to have somewhere to go a couple of days a month. An elected official representing Las Vegas represents the lives and resources of thousands of people. The responsibility while sitting on that LVCVA board should be to those people.

It appears as though the responsibility was to President Rossi Ralenkotter or maybe to Billie Vassiliadis at R&R Partners.

What should have been caught at a reading of the agenda now will be heard in a variety of courts, paid for by tax dollars over a long period of time. Instead of having a salable item in terms of licensing agreements or self-production of coffee cups, t-shirts, and the like, bundles will be spent just to see who owns the phrase.

Elected officials should have a primary responsibility to the electorate. The state of Nevada is in the midst of an audit of the spending patterns of TMWA but you wouldn't know it from talking to the elected officials who serve on the board of directors. They feel their primary responsibility is to TMWA while many including this writer feel their primary responsibility should be to see to it that TMWA operates in the best interest of the citizens of the cities and county.

A board member who is an elected official of a political entity isn't serving on that board for public relations purposes but is serving to see to it that the people he represents are fully represented on the board.

District judges have been known to take a "power nap" from time to time during long and tedious judicial hearings. It appears as though some members of the current crop of elected officials need their "power nap" as well. At a tremendous cost to us.

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