Columnist Jeff German: Little progress reported in contract talks at convention center

I'M BACK, LAS VEGAS. Two weeks of fun in the hot desert sun have recharged the old muckraking batteries.

Some things -- like reported low morale among employees at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority -- have gone unchanged during my two-week hiatus.

Contract talks between the LVCVA and 275 members of the Nevada Service Employees Union, I'm told, are moving at a snail's pace.

The old three-year contract expired July 1, and both sides are said to be far apart on a new wage and benefit package. The LVCVA is looking to scale back pay raises.

Those negotiating a new contract are assigned to the LVCVA's embattled Facilities Division, which has direct contact with millions of conventioneers who come to town each year.

No one's talking strike just yet, but the SEIU chastised convention authority executives in a recent union newsletter.

The union took delight in pointing out that the proposed cut in employee pay raises comes while LVCVA President Manny Cortez has been singled out as Nevada's highest paid public official. His annual salary is $203,995.

At the LVCVA, they're not denying that Cortez and his top subordinates are paid well. But the spin there is that the local tourism executives still make less than many of their counterparts in other big cities.

Low morale within the Facilities Division was first disclosed here in April, when dozens of workers stepped forward to air their grievances with management.

Little has taken place to calm tempers since then. If anything, insiders report, working conditions have gotten worse.

Not true, says LVCVA spokesman Rob Powers.

"It's possible that there are a handful of employees who may not be happy," Powers says. "But the vast majority feel fortunate to have jobs here."

The union doesn't seem to share that opinion.

Two more key staffers have deserted the National Gambling Impact Study Commission in the middle of its work.

And it's fueling talk that all is not well within the nine-member panel.

Researcher Allison Flat and Press Secretary Amy Ricketts both have accepted jobs elsewhere.

Their departures follow last month's abrupt resignation of Nancy Mohr Kennedy, the panel's respected executive director.

Officially, Kennedy, a longtime Washington bureaucrat, quit for "personal reasons."

But there were rumblings that friction between her and Chairwoman Kay James, an administrator at Pat Robertson's Regent University in Virginia, may have led to Kennedy's decision to leave.

Though James is not on record opposed to gambling, she is regarded as an emerging leader in the Christian right, which is pursuing an anti-gambling agenda.

Rumors have circulated that university minions of James were interfering with the work of Kennedy and her staffers.

Kennedy hasn't been talking and Ricketts could not be reached for comment.

The latest resignations, however, have renewed concerns among some commissioners that an anti-gaming agenda has been influencing the panel's work.

Acting Executive Director Timothy Kelly was hand-picked by James last year to head the commission's research efforts.

The panel, which is supposed to issue its report to Congress next June, meets in San Diego and Tempe, Ariz., next week. The staff shakeup is likely to make for a lively discussion.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is looking for a new press secretary.

Karen Kirchgasser, the senator's spokeswoman the past three years, has accepted a job in the Clinton administration.

Next month, the 30-year-old Kirchgasser becomes the new director of public affairs for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is part of the Department of Commerce.

Her last day in Bryan's office is Aug. 3.

There's no word on her successor, but Bryan will have to search long and hard to fill her shoes.

Joe Catale earned a reputation as one of the real nice guys in law enforcement when he ran the Drug Enforcement Administration's Las Vegas office in the 1980s.

His death last week hit his friends hard.

Catale, 74, spent 20 years as a New York City police officer before joining the DEA. He'll be missed.

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