Tuesday, March 18, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- This is Bill Raggio, calling for Chief Judge Seymore Brown.
With words to that effect, Raggio, during a Senate Government Affairs Committee hearing Monday, tested the need for a bill to require Las Vegas municipal judges to answer their own phones or to have a secretary on hand.
Municipal judges don't have individual phone numbers listed in the directory, meaning that members of the public who phone the court speak to a machine or to a person who doesn't work for a particular judge.
That is unacceptable to Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, who introduced a bill to require direct access.
"The judges have individual phones, but the public can't access those phones," Neal told the committee Monday.
With that, Raggio, the Senate majority leader, instructed the committee's lawyer to call Brown.
As the audience in the hearing room looked on, Raggio took the phone after the number was dialed. He spoke briefly to a court secretary, but he could not get through to Brown, who apparently was in a meeting.
"Tell him to call (Chairwoman) Ann O'Connell," Raggio, R-Reno, told the secretary, as the audience laughed.
Marvin Leavitt, lobbyist for the city of Las Vegas, said the city opposes the bill because the expense to provide a secretary and new phone lines for six municipal judges could run as high as $320,000.
Neal agreed to amend the bill so that each judge's name and number are listed in the phone book, rather than requiring judges or secretaries to answer the phone.
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