Two cities team up on police training site

By Jean Reid Norman

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Eldorado Valley is one step away from becoming home to a regional training complex for law enforcement.

The Boulder City Council on Tuesday night approved an agreement with Henderson for the Eldorado Valley Regional Public Safety Training Facility. Boulder City is providing 240 acres of land for it and has more than $600,000 in federal earmarks to cover the costs of roads, fencing and other infrastructure, City Manager Vicki Mayes said.

Henderson has set aside $1 million for construction of the training complex and the Homeland Security Department awarded $250,000 to outfit it, Henderson Police Lt. Rob McCorkle said. Henderson also has two modular office buildings it will move to the site for use as classrooms.

The Henderson City Council is expected to approve the agreement at an upcoming meeting, and then construction can begin, McCorkle said.

The first phase of construction would include a shooting range with 15 lanes for officers, Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said. This will be especially helpful for Henderson, which has 400 officers who have to keep their gun skills sharp, he said.

In addition, Finn said, federal agencies are lining up to use the new training complex. Anyone other than the Boulder City and Henderson police departments will have to pay to use the new complex, according to the agreement between the cities.

“Dozens of federal agencies are dying to use this facility,” Finn said.

The chief said he hoped to have the facility ready within a few months.

The second and third phases of construction would add a 400-yard sniper range, an empty house to train SWAT units and a second emergency vehicle operations course, Finn said.

The site has an 800-by-800-foot road course where police officers can practice driving skills, Finn said. It is used by Boulder City Police, Henderson Police, the Nevada Highway Patrol, the Southern Nevada Law Enforcement Academy and other law enforcement agencies.

“Now agencies wait weeks at a time” to be able to use the road course, Finn said.

The Eldorado Valley site also is capable of accommodating Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives training. Other law enforcers like to have that agency stage explosions then walk officers through for evidence gathering. The Eldorado Valley site has a pit almost 1,000 feet across that is perfect for such training, he said.

“You can blow up a bus and no one would complain, because no one lives nearby,” Finn said.

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The most recent charge of unfair labor practices against Boulder City Hospital has been dropped, but a union vote among its 300 nurses, housekeepers and other workers appears to be on hold while previous charges are appealed to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington.

Teamsters Union Local 14 had filed the most recent charge after an administrative law judge found in the union’s favor on several prior complaints.

The union alleged that managers at the nonprofit hospital retaliated against a nurse for his testimony during a May hearing. The judge in that case wrote that the hospital had wrongly interrogated the nurse about union activity and that supervisors had incorrectly told him that the hospital would close if it were unionized. The judge also wrote that he found the nurse’s testimony more credible than that of hospital managers.

National Labor Relations Board Deputy Regional Attorney Steven Wamser confirmed that the most recent allegations were dropped by the union.

Repeated calls to the Teamsters Local 14 organizers seeking an explanation were not returned.

Wamser said a union election at the hospital was still being blocked by the hospital’s appeal of the earlier charges to the National Labor Relations Board. The five-member board currently has only two members, he said. He did not know when the other three members would be confirmed.

If the board in Washington finds the hospital was wrong, a compliance plan will be put in place within 60 days, but if it finds for the hospital, the union election could proceed immediately, the hospital’s lawyer said.