Legislative counsel: Constables can’t grab business in other townships

Southern Nevada's border-jumping constables should stay closer to home when it comes to serving legal documents, according to one of the Legislature's top lawyers.

Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes said the Legislature doesn't authorize the practice of constables leaving the boundaries of their own townships to rack up revenue elsewhere, an opinion some say marks the beginning of the end of Laughlin Township Constable Jordan Ross' and others' practice of serving papers in Las Vegas.

"They are in our township serving papers and collecting money out of our township that they shouldn't be," Las Vegas Township Constable spokesman Lou Toomin said.

If other constables, particularly Ross or North Las Vegas Constable Herb Brown, are concerned about the opinion, it doesn't show.

"We're just ignoring it," Ross said. "The opinion from a legislative counsel bureau is not going to carry any weight in court."

Brown was more blunt: "That is a bunch of crap," he said. "That opinion is not going to change a damn thing for me."

Border-crossing constables have become a controversy since the 2010 election of embattled Las Vegas Township Constable John Bonaventura, who ousted longtime incumbent Robert Gronauer.

Bonaventura, whose office was embroiled in another controversy when deputies were accused of acting unprofessionally in an online video shot for a proposed reality show, has objected to efforts by constable offices in Laughlin and elsewhere seeking to boost their bottom lines by sending deputies to work in Las Vegas.

"We don't know to the penny, but it could be several hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly," Toomin said, estimating how much he thinks out-of-township constables are raking in from Las Vegas.

He said the legislative counsel opinion is a sign the practice could be on the way out, no matter what the other constables say.

"They are not going to be able to ignore it for long," Toomin said. "That is a legislative opinion, and it holds a lot of water."

Clark County is home to 11 constable offices ranging in size from Las Vegas Township, which has a budget of more than $3 million, to smaller jurisdictions in places such as Moapa and Searchlight with minuscule budgets and no employees.

According to Nevada law, constables are peace officers and their duties include serving subpoenas, handling evictions and summoning juries for a justice of the peace.

Constables are elected by the people of a given township and are free to hire deputies. In larger offices, such as Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, the county pays for administrative support.

In Las Vegas Township, the county sets a maximum pay rate for the constable of about $100,000.

In the other jurisdictions, the constables and their deputies are paid based on how much business they transact.

"It is for efficiency," Henderson Constable Earl Mitchell said. "The businesses that come to us they are looking to save money."

Erdoes' opinion, however, said constables aren't authorized by the Legislature to work outside their jurisdictions.

"In such a circumstance, a constable acting outside of his or her township would be wholly unaccountable," Erdoes said in a four-page letter dated June 8 on the subject to state Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, who sought the opinion.

Bonaventura sent a news release Monday trumpeting the letter as "historical."

Although the opinion doesn't carry the weight of a judicial ruling, it does bring the issue to the attention of the Legislature.

Lee said if the constables can't stop quarreling, the Legislature might have no choice but to settle the dispute.

"I for one want everyone to know what the law is and if they are representing their agencies that they follow the law," said Lee, who is seeking re-election to the Senate.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@ reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.