By FRED WEINBERG
Editor and Publisher
One of the bedrock rules of suckling at the public teat is that at least the terms and conditions of transactions using tax dollars are absolutely public.
That, perhaps, is why nobody usually needs to get a copy of a county’s contract with an employee’s union. Everybody knows it will be available should they need to see it.
Last Sunday, the Las Vegas Review Journal exposed a glaring exception near the bottom of a 2,000 word story on the Clark County Fire Department contract with its union, the International Association of Fire Fighters.
When the contract was signed in 2007 (it expires in 2010) the following clause was added:
“The Union and County agree that the only way the public shall obtain a copy of this collective bargaining agreement is a request in writing to the Union or the County.”
In addition the county was forbidden from placing the 197 page document “in whole ir in part” on a web site.
And these morons on the County Commission, Susan Brager, Tom Collins, Yvonne Gates, Chris Giunchigliani, Rory Reid and Bruce Woodbury voted for it. Gates and Woodbury are gone, Reid has visions of becoming Governor and the rest of them ought to know better or they will eventually join four of their 1999 colleagues in the crossbar Hilton.
What could these people be thinking?
We are indebted to the Review Journal which came across this ridicules and probably illegal clause when it was researching a story on (among other things) how it is that a firefighter with base pay of $79,000 a year could retire on $84,000 a year.
They immediately obtained a copy of the contract and published on their web site. We have copied that copy and placed it here: Clark County Firefighter’s Contract.
We’ve always been big believers in sunshine being the best disinfectant.
While we certainly do not begrudge firefighters reasonable pay and benefits for the very difficult job they do, we also doubt that if the public were to vote on the question “Do you believe that firefighters ought to make over $100,000” that the answer yes would be the winner.
Which, we suspect, was the object of the union’s crude and ultimately ineffective attempt to keep the actual contract away from the prying eyes of the people who actually pay the bill.
The point of the RJ story was that in Clark County, it seems that the system is being gamed to give certain firefighters near retirement a sendoff kiss. Ironically, that does not seem to be the case in Henderson or North Las Vegas.
But then, Clark County has always been special when it comes to gaming any system. Just watch the mostly true movie, Casino, if you don’t believe it. Or go to our website, www.lasvegascrooks.com and listen to the wiretap recordings of the 1999 County Commissioner’s prison class which we enshrined there for future generations.
This is precisely the sort of thing which makes people want to live anywhere but in unincorporated Clark County.
Keep in mind that this contract cost the good citizens of Clark County an additional five+ million dollars a year.
What were they trying to hide?
And from who?
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