Belated safety training slated for housing authority workers

Maintenance employees at a local public housing agency finally will be trained on safety protocols next week, more than a month after costly violations were identified by the state.

However, John Hill, executive director for the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal earlier this month that staff had already been retrained and that the violations would be detailed at the housing authority's board of commissioners meeting on Thursday.

In August, the agency was fined $47,000 for six serious safety violations identified by the state's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The violations happened in April when employees were repairing an underground water line.

After being questioned during the meeting, Hill said the last time employees received state-sponsored training on how to dig and operate a dig was in mid-2011.

Hill said a discussion took place with staff in May after the state's April 30 investigation, and he viewed that as training. He also halted all digs.

But a new safety protocol wasn't developed until last week. The training for housing authority maintenance staff will take place on Wednesday.

"If safety protocols ... aren't being kept or updated and so forth, than this is a lesson learned that we've got to pay more attention to," Hill said during the public meeting.

The housing authority paid the fines with funding from its central office call center. It's not federal funding, said Hill, who declined to say more. The penalties were paid after the Sept. 1 due date, but it's not yet known whether the state will charge additional fines for the late payment.

The investigation took place at a housing authority property at 5701 Missouri Ave., near Tropicana Avenue and Boulder Highway. When the inspection began, the excavation was 7.5 feet deep, 21 feet long and approximately 10 feet wide, according to documents. Water was accumulating in the excavation.

Employees with the housing authority and a contractor were fixing a broken water main. There was no cave-in protection, and before and after the inspection, several areas of the excavation collapsed, according to the state's inspection narrative. Employees also were not wearing hard hats.

The housing authority also failed to notify local utilities prior to the excavation.

The agency doesn't have an employee who oversees risk management, but Hill said he would have that worked out by next week.

During the housing authority board meeting, there were also contradicting stories about whether employees were working in the hole after Hill was informed of the issue. Hill and Ted Otokiti, deputy director of public housing, maintained no one was allowed to go into the hole.

But employees contradicted that.

Marvin Coleman, vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 1107, said there were about five staffers, including himself, in the hole. He said they were ordered by Otokiti to continue to dig. Otokiti said he didn't think that was true.

People's lives were put in danger, Commissioner Dora LaGrande said.

"Somebody would have fallen into that hole," she said.

Safety was not the only problem.

"One of the issues is when you are dishonest to your board," she said of Hill. He only sent them an email after receiving a call from the Review-Journal on the violations, she said.

Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3843. Find her on Twitter:@YeseniaAmaro.