EDITORIAL: Remove Ramsey

It’s imperative that North Las Vegas voters remove the most reckless, arrogant and harmful elected official in Southern Nevada.

Unfortunately, that official is not on the city’s April 7 municipal primary ballot.

North Las Vegas voters have some work to do before they can rid their city of Municipal Judge Catherine Ramsey. A recall drive was made official Wednesday when residents Bob Borgersen, Betty Hamilton and Michael William Moreno filed their petition with the city clerk. As reported Thursday by the Review-Journal’s Bethany Barnes, the petitioners have until June 9 to submit 1,984 valid voter signatures to the city and trigger an election to bounce Judge Ramsey.

It won’t be an easy task. The petitioners probably could meet that signature requirement in a single weekend standing outside a Wal-Mart. But the signatures cannot come from just any North Las Vegas resident. They must be provided by North Las Vegas residents who are registered to vote and voted in the June 2011 election, when Judge Ramsey won her six-year term. That requirement narrows the pool of eligible petition signers considerably.

So petitioners will have to go from a list of 2011 voters, house to house, to collect those signatures.

The cause is worth the trouble. Why recall Judge Ramsey? Let us count the ways:

— She is the subject of several complaints from current and former employees who said she engaged in “hostile,” “intimidating” and “discriminatory” conduct. Those complaints have cost the city more than $50,000 in settlements and investigatory expenses. This isn’t appropriate behavior for a judge. This is the behavior of a bully.

— Judge Ramsey has sued the city (meaning its taxpayers) because the city attorney refused to defend her in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by her formal judicial assistant.

— After being spurned by the city, Judge Ramsey used her city purchasing card to pay her attorney $12,000. That’s outright theft of public resources.

— To punish the city for not defending her and for cutting Municipal Court funding (the struggling city government has cut spending across the board to avoid state receivership), attorneys say Judge Ramsey is dismissing cases and reducing charges as retaliation, costing the city as much as $10,000 per month in fee and fine collections.

The petitioners have a website, removeramseynow.com, that provides supporting documentation of Judge Ramsey’s egregious conduct, which already has cost city taxpayers dearly.

Waiting until the 2017 election to replace Judge Ramsey would be far more expensive to the city than recalling her now. City residents should keep their eyes open for signature collectors. Voters can’t remove Judge Ramsey if they don’t sign a recall petition first.