It looks like politics as usual drives Taxicab Authority appointment

As usual, it comes down to a power struggle over a job. Who has muscle? Who’s willing to use it?

We’re not talking Santa and his elves here. The job in this tug of war: administrator of the Taxicab Authority.

On one side are veteran members of the Taxicab Authority Board. On the other is Mendy Elliott, director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry. Can Elliott get her chosen one the job as Taxicab Authority administrator, when the board has already rejected him?

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Board members, all gubernatorial appointees, interview candidates and forward three names to the head of the Department of Business and Industry, who gives a name to the governor.

Elliott, whose department oversees the Taxicab Authority, apparently didn’t like the three names forwarded in September. Her choice, Tom Czehowski, the person she installed as acting administrator last May, didn’t make the cut.

Instead, April Woodard, Brock Croy and Gordon Walker were recommended, in that order of preference.

Woodard is a former deputy commissioner for the Transportation Services Authority with a background in banking security and police work. Croy is a management analyst at the Taxicab Authority. Walker is a former deputy executive director at the Nevada Department of Taxation and now works for Ruchman and Associates.

Czehowski waltzed into the acting administrator’s job in May, when Elliott fired former Administrator Richard Land without the board’s knowledge and without any explanation.

Czehowski, formerly the chief administrator at the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has been acting administrator for more than seven months. So what’s the hold-up?

“We are still in the process of reviewing candidates,” Department of Business and Industry spokeswoman Elizabeth Shurtleff said, without addressing the unusual delay or whether Elliot is waiting for another Gibbons appointee to join the board.

Gibbons’ spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said Elliott “expects to have a decision shortly” and that the governor has no problem with the delay. The governor believes Elliott “should take as much time as needed to make sure that the right person is appointed.”

The authority regulates 16 cab companies and about 1,600 cabdrivers.

It’s been too long, board Chairwoman Kathryn Werner-Collins said Friday. The candidates were submitted to Elliott in September. “How long can it take at that point?” asked Werner-Collins, who is also general counsel for the Police Protective Association.

The chairwoman is about to move to force Elliott’s hand.

“I’ll wait until the turn of the year and then ask her to appoint someone by a deadline. If she doesn’t, that will bring the issue to a head,” Werner-Collins said. Legal action may be required, she said. “Although I hope it doesn’t get to that point.”

Board member Carolyn Sparks was equally upset. “We’ve been told everything is on hold. Something is going on here. The board is pretty much being ignored by Mendy and the governor.”

Werner-Collins and Sparks are appointees of former Gov. Kenny Guinn. In November, Gibbons appointed two new members, attorneys Stacie Truesdell and Susan Carrasco. Werner-Collins’ term is up at the end of May.

Is Elliott waiting until the chairwoman is replaced with a third Gibbons appointee to the five-member board? Perhaps then the selection process would be reopened and Elliott’s preference could go to the front of the line.

Werner-Collins said she has “serious concerns the system has been manipulated.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. Political games with appointments to regulatory boards are certainly common. Don’t forget Gov. Guinn’s unsuccessful effort to appoint his chief of staff to the Gaming Control Board at the last minute, so that his appointee would be foisted on Gibbons for four years.

If no appointment is made until Werner-Collins leaves, then clearly the game’s afoot.

Normally, regulatory boards are appointed and left to do their jobs without the governor or his administrators interfering too much.

Now the message seems to be that boards need to kowtow to gubernatorial administrators. That’s taking away the historical independence of the regulatory boards. That’s moving in the wrong direction.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.