Tuesday, July 17, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.
When Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid looked over the agenda for today's meeting, a request from District Court officials left him shaking his head.
They wanted the county to pay $120,000 for their lobbyist, Rick Loop - the same fellow who fought commissioners on an issue that will cost the county millions of dollars.
"My reaction was, why is the county paying for a lobbyist who argued against us?" Reid said.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Reid asked County Manager Virginia Valentine what the request was doing on the agenda. She said the county's management team - which decides what goes on the agenda for commissioners' approval - had already noticed the same thing and decided to yank the item. But a staff person slipped up and the request by judges that the county pay for their lobbyist found its way onto the agenda anyway.
Now she'll remove it at the beginning of today's meeting.
But some nameless secretary might as well have picked at a fresh scab. Last year the county hired three lobbyists - Loop, Josh Griffin and Tim Crowley - who then argued against the county's interests before the 2007 Legislature.
On behalf of District Court, Loop lobbied lawmakers in Carson City to approve 10 new judges in Clark County. The county opposed the new judges because although the state pays judges' salaries, the county gets stuck with the bill for support staff and facilities to accommodate them.
The courts and the county compromised and six new judges will be added to the bench in 2009. That will cost the county an estimated $4.3 million in staff, plus the cost of possible new court rooms and chambers. The county paid Loop $80,000 for 16 months' of lobbying on various matters.
District Court judges have already said they plan to ask for more judges during the 2009 legislative session, and the county's executives and commissioners are wary, based on what transpired this year.
The county also paid Griffin and Crowley $105,000 collectively to represent it in Carson City - even though the pair also represented the sometimes-competing interests of gaming giant MGM Mirage. Consider, for instance, lawmakers' debate to amend a two-year-old law that gave generous tax breaks to companies that adopted environmentally friendly construction guidelines. MGM wanted the law preserved to save millions of dollars in tax breaks on CityCenter, while the county wanted the laws changed to recapture millions of dollars in lost tax revenue. Griffin and Crowley represented MGM throughout the debate.
Those experiences have left county officials leery of lobbying contracts, hence the hasty exit of the District Court's request from today's agenda.
In fact, county officials are re evaluating contracts with Loop, Griffin, Crowley and two other lobbyists.
Griffin, Crowley and Loop say the problems experienced during this year's session are rare. Loop said the number of new judges was the "only bone of contention" with the county.
Indeed, Loop and the county worked together to secure $1 million for a mental health court and $400,000 for Spring Mountain Youth Camp.
Still, county officials are researching whether they are obligated to pay for the court's lobbyist.
State law says the county must "adequately fund the courts," said Chuck Short, the District Court's chief executive officer. "What the debate becomes is: What is adequate? Is a lobbyist who tries to get funding for more judges, Spring Mountain and mental health court in that definition of adequate? We think we have an obligation to the community to advocate for those things."
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