Let’s get on with vote on cops sales tax

The Clark County Commission Tuesday put off — until what Chairman Steve Sisolak called “a time uncertain” — making a decision about raising the sales tax by 0.15 percentage points to pay for current and new police officers.

Commissioner Susan Brager requested the delay, saying questions remain about the existing More Cops budget. She also encouraged Sheriff Doug Gillespie to go before community town halls to explain the details to the public.

Not that many people should be in the dark at this point. After a torturous process winding through the Nevada Legislature and hearings before the commission, the details of the plan have emerged. But here’s the gist: Back in 2004, voters narrowly approved a proposal advanced by then-Sheriff Bill Young to increase the sales tax by a half-cent to pay for new officers in Metro and other valley police agencies. The Nevada Legislature approved a quarter-cent instead, which went into effect after the 2005 session.

This year, Sheriff Doug Gillespie returned to Carson City, seeking the other quarter-cent. The Legislature — which controls the reins of power so tightly that county officials must beg for permission to tow illegally parked cars from county lots — nonetheless decided increasing taxes by 0.15 percentage points was a matter the locals could handle.

An ordinance was readied for Tuesday’s meeting, but that ordinance now hangs in limbo.

The spectacle that arose from Tuesday’s public hearing almost makes the wait worthwhile, however. Cindy Lake, the recently deposed chairwoman of the Clark County Republican Party, allowed that she “didn’t feel safer” in a room populated by so many police officers. Gadfly Ed Uehling questioned whether we should be more afraid of gangs and terrorists than our own police. The National Security Agency’s spying — clearly something not within Gillespie’s purview — was denounced repeatedly. International bankers were mentioned as the real enemy, as if denying Gillespie the ability to keep and hire new officers would break up that particular cartel. The new Metro Police headquarters building — authorized by Clark County and which would have been necessary in any event because of the sale of the old City Hall building to Zappos.com — was raised as an example of why more officers are not needed. Some raised the issue of the recent resignation of several members of the department’s Use of Force Board (and a two-star assistant sheriff) after Gillespie rejected a recommendation to fire an officer who’d wounded an unarmed man in the leg after mistaking a shiny sticker on a hat for a gun. This is a good argument to review use-of-force policies and discipline for that individual officer, not to avoid hiring new ones.

It got so bad that the occasional good point was almost lost in the murky bubbling cauldron of crazy soup.

The sales tax is regressive, some said, and that’s true. But it’s not as if the commission and the Las Vegas City Council (which jointly fund Metro) are going to offer more general-fund dollars to fix Metro’s problems. The sales tax is, and always was, a fallback plan.

“I need to know, as the sheriff of Clark County, how much money I will have to run my organization,” Gillespie said at the end of the hearing, asking for a vote within 60 days. It’s not an unreasonable request, but the county made it clear there is no set timeline for making a decision.

Meanwhile, Gillespie and the department committed to answering any and all questions, whether from commissioners or constituents, in an effort to get the tax passed.

“We have to make sure it’s right because we have the fiduciary responsibility,” Brager said after the meeting. True enough. If past is prologue, Gillespie and his team will have little trouble making the case. But after they do, the county must act, and soon.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.