On the job in LV

line By Sun Staff

Las Vegas is famous for its high-profile characters -- Wayne Newton, Siegfried & Roy and Danny Gans among them.

But it is some of the city's not-so-visible players that keep America's entertainment capital up and running 24 hours a day for visitors and residents alike.

Following are insights into some of the unusual and interesting jobs found in one of the most unconventional of cities.

* The Ticketmaster

Almost everyone's been there.

Regardless of age, race, income or religious beliefs, chances are if you drive a car, you've been to traffic court.

And if you have a problem paying your ticket, chances are you know Darren Jenkins.

Jenkins is in charge of the community service work program for alternative sentencing. When someone can't pay their fine, or community service is part of their sentence, then Jenkins puts them to work. Workers are given $10 an hour in credit if they need to work off fines.

"It's like volunteering," he said, "but with the help of a judge."

He said that about one in five who come through his office are repeat offenders.

"They walk in here and say, 'Hi D.J.' and ask if they have to go through orientation or if they can work at the same place they did last time," he said. "Some tell me it's cheaper to work off their fine for not having car insurance every year than to have car insurance since the maximum fine for it is $1,000 and a lot of people pay more than that a year for insurance."

Even though he's faced with these realities, Jenkins remains faithful to the system. He cites example after example of offenders who got cleaned up after working off their fine.

One such worker, who spent 13 years in prison, even challenged Jenkins to a fight. After cooling down, he apologized, and ended up being one of the hardest workers the traffic system ever saw.

"He finished his fine," Jenkins said. "He was grateful to me for giving him a chance. He said it turned him around. I hope that's what happened."

* Keeper of the Trolley

At first glance, the trolley-styled bus seems a bit cheesey, even by Las Vegas standards.

After all, there were never any real trolleys here to begin with. The city was barely a village when they were being used in other cities such as San Francisco at the turn of the century.

But the lack of historical accuracy doesn't bother Milton Clay, the lead driver of the Las Vegas trolley bus.

"Driving this is really a pleasure," he said. "It's a lot less stressful than being a CAT driver. I work strictly for the city now."

He greets passengers by their first names, asks them what they did for the New Year and how they're feeling. Most of Clay's riders are seniors -- studies have shown at least 76 percent -- who use the trolley because it costs them a mere quarter per ride.

He drives one of two routes, both starting at the downtown bus station. One goes to Meadows Mall and one goes to the Lucky grocery store on East Charleston. Created to service locals who live in the downtown area, the trolley's busiest time is in the beginning of the month when Social Security checks come in.

"They go to the grocery store to get their food and pay bills," Clay said. "It's better than spending their money on something else."

The scariest part of the job, Clay said, is the traffic. When it gets busy, the trolley becomes cumbersome to maneuver around hostile drivers.

Irving Garrell, a regular user of the trolley, said the funny-looking bus is the best thing to come out of city government.

Clay agrees, as he rings his bell three times before heading off.

* The Music Man

Removing dead birds and remote controls wedged in the bells of tubas are all in a day's work for Bill Parker.

And Parker wouldn't have it any other way because the instrument repairman for the Clark County School District says these kinds of projects are what makes his job interesting and challenging.

Every school year Parker and his partner, Don Marconi, repair more than 2,000 instruments.

Besides removing bizarre objects from tubas and re-glueing wood instruments that have split because of extreme temperatures, Parker said the most common repair jobs are removing dents from brass instruments and fixing problems caused by well-meaning parents and students trying to do their own repair work.

"But then again, almost everything we do is unusual," Parker said as he surveyed shelves full of instruments in varying degree of repair. "We hardly ever run into the exact same damage repair."

Parker, a former working musician who still gives music lessons and owns his own instrument repair business in California, even manufactures instrument parts at his shop in the school district operations department.

He said it's rare to declare an instrument beyond repair, even those that are not being manufactured any longer. Instead, they manufacture their own spare parts for older, obsolete instruments.

The local school district is one of only a few that employ their own instrument repairmen. Usually, schools send their damaged instruments out for repair, Parker explained.

Only a handful of schools across the country are devoted to teaching instrument repair, so there are very few people qualified to do his job, Parker said. A national search was launched by the school district when his position was created to assist Marconi a year-and-a-half ago.

* Master of the School Board

"I've outlasted 15 school board members," Dennis Anderson boasts. "And I'll probably outlast a couple more."

Thirteen years of quiet observation has given Anderson quite an education in school district issues and gossip.

If you want to know who's aligned with whom on the school board or what the hot topic of the month is, Anderson's got the answers. And he says he can "catch in a second" any time the board deviates from Parliamentary meeting procedure.

What's the longest meeting he's sat through on overtime pay? Seven hours. The shortest? About 15 minutes. The school board president with the most control? Susan Brager. The funniest occurrence at a school board meeting? Jeff Burr's appearance at his last board meeting, dressed as a lame duck.

The most aggravating aspect of his job? Audience and school board members who don't know what they're talking about. "Sometimes you just want to go down there and choke people!" he said.

By day, Anderson is one of four men who repair and support the Clark County School District's 25,000 computers.

But it's his nighttime duties that make him one of the school district's most informed employees: audio and video-taping the entire proceedings of school board meetings and expulsion hearings.

Every other meeting, Anderson, a 13-year employee with the school district, sits at the back of the school board meeting room and tapes the meetings and keeps the voting board equipment in order. The meetings that Anderson isn't scheduled for are handled by co-worker Don Kruz.

Recording at least two meetings each month for 13 years adds up to "many, many moons of meetings," Anderson said.

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The Juggler

Being administrator over a court system of 24 independently elected judges, with their whims, wants, egos and opinions, has be like herding cats.

But for the past four years, Charles Short has managed to get the judges organized on issues of consistency and productivity and focused on the future of the court system.

It hasn't been a whip and chair job because he has no authority over the judges. In fact, he works for the 16 general jurisdiction judges and eight Family Court judges, so the job is more of a no-net, tightrope position that requires the ability to juggle.

Short and his tiny administrative staff oversee nearly 200 employees handling jury services, courthouse security, a $17.7 million dollar budget, judicial travel and training, public relations, legislative lobbying and much of the planning of the new Justice Center.

The latest evolution at the County Courthouse is the shift to specialization by the judges, with about half of the 16 general jurisdiction judges handling civil cases and the other half dealing with criminal cases.

SUN REPORTERS Denise Cardinal, Bill Gang, Teresa Hinds and Jeff Schweers contributed to this story.

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