Health officials disagree with worker complaints

Clark County Health District officials intend to respond in writing to whistleblower complaints about how air pollution control decisions are made.

The complaints were raised at a legislative hearing on Monday.

Air Quality Division Director Michael Naylor said he could not provide the subcommittee, meeting in Las Vegas, with specifics because personnel matters cannot be discussed in public.

Naylor called for an independent review of "honest disagreements" between his staff and supervisors.

Two employees told the subcommittee Monday that the health district fell behind on processing air quality permits, that politics interfered with enforcement decisions and that pollution emissions records are poorly kept.

Sen. Jon Porter, R-Boulder City, chairman of the subcommittee, termed the complaints "serious concerns."

Porter urged Naylor and the health district to resolve the disagreements within the agency.

Naylor defended the division without going into specifics on any employee.

"We are disagreeing with 90 percent of what they are saying," Naylor said of the employees, Wilbert Townsend and his supervisor Elizabeth Gilmartin, while not denying there had been problems in the past. "We have an honest disagreement."

Naylor said that no decisions on enforcement actions were based on political reasons.

"I would not tolerate it and you would not tolerate it," he told legislators.

The 60 people working in his division are "good family people," Naylor said. "They are not ivory tower people making political decisions."

The subcommittee had offered the two employees protection under Nevada's whistleblower law. Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said a handful of disgruntled air quality staffers came to her when they felt they were not being heard by administrators.

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