Ethics commission won’t pursue complaints against North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee

The Nevada Commission on Ethics issued a decision Wednesday saying that despite “sufficient credible evidence” that North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee acted outside the scope of his office to influence city hiring, such actions don’t violate the state ethics law.

The decision stems from formal complaints filed in March 2015 by two longtime human resources employees, who were laid off in May 2015 when the city outsourced that department.

It’s a short response — a little over a page — to the employees’ complaints, which spanned more than 100 pages.

The complaints described the mayor’s tenure in office, which began in July 2013, as a reign of terror where favoritism is rampant and employees are threatened and humiliated until they fall in line or are fired.

Lee did not respond to requests for comment.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Yvonne Nevarez-Goodson said the commission found allegations against Lee to be true, but the commission’s limited scope prevents it from acting.

“We’re not able to find decisions or make opinions about whether or not it’s appropriate to influence hiring decisions,” Nevarez-Goodson said. “That may still be inappropriate. I don’t know. That’s not up for the commission to decide, that’s up for the voters to decide.”

Nevarez-Goodson said she wanted to acknowledge the former employees who filed the complaint might be disappointed or feel misunderstood, adding, “I certainly want to encourage the public to be the gatekeepers, if you will, to making public officers accountable.”

The ethics commission does not have the ability to enforce a city’s charter, Nevarez-Goodson said.

North Las Vegas has a city manager style of governance, meaning the mayor serves in a figurehead role and its city manager is supposed to serve as the chief executive officer.

PANEL LOOKS ONLY AT CONFLICTS

Nevarez-Goodson said she wanted to make it clear the ethics commission looks only at conflicts of interest, which are narrowly defined by law.

That means that although the commission found Lee acted outside his scope of office to weigh in on city hiring “of certain employees with whom he may have shared personal friendships, former business relationships and religious affiliations,” none of those relationships are deemed conflicts of interest under the law.

For example, religious relationships were a huge component of the complaints, but favoritism in regard to religion is not something the Legislature declared a conflict, Nevarez-Goodson said.

Expanding the law to include religious associates could open claims of First Amendment violations and any expanded definition would be something the Legislature would have to examine, she said.

The complaints included a list of nine names of people the mayor’s office had hired who are said to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with Lee accused of skirting hiring rules to put fellow Mormons into city jobs.

Lee’s attitude toward employees also is not something the commission can weigh.

Among other things, the complaint included accusations that Lee told an employee he was too old to be working and asked why he wasn’t a practicing Mormon, and that he asked an employee if she was married and told her “there are other ‘pretty’ people who can do her job.”

The complaints also argued that Lee wrongly gave city jobs to people who worked on his campaign.

Nevarez-Goodson said the commission closely examined those relationships to see if they fell within the narrow legal definition of a conflict, which would require a determination that the conflict is substantial and ongoing. She said the commission looked to see if Lee’s campaign was still paying the workers after they started at the city, but found no found no evidence of a conflict as defined under the law.

EMPLOYEE ALLEGATIONS

The employees who filed the complaint argued Lee had the city create a job for Ryann Juden, and that he used Juden as an enforcer to skirt the city’s charter.

Juden, who worked on Lee’s campaign and is a Mormon, became an assistant city manager in August 2015.

Lee’s campaign paid Juden and his wife $131,801, according to campaign expense report records dating to 2011.

Neither Lee nor Juden would comment for this article.

Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who has written extensively on Nevada politics, said whether the ethics commission made the right call on North Las Vegas is less important than its track record of “being about as useful as the human appendix.”

“What happens is that politicians and officials around the state go to the ethics commission, the ethics commission almost always concludes that even if something is questionable there is nothing the commission can do about it, and then everybody can claim, ‘Well, it’s all right because the ethics commission didn’t drop the hammer,’” Green said.

“The ethics commission has been kept toothless for a reason: Having it around provides a fallback.”

Another state agency might still weigh in on whether Lee unfairly influenced hiring: The Employee Management Relations Board, which handles disagreements between employers and employees.

Tammy Bonner and Bachera Washington, who made the ethical allegations, also filed complaints with that board in November 2015 arguing they lost their jobs for standing up to the mayor.

The city has said its decision to outsource its human resources department had nothing to do with Washington and Bonner.

Also, the State Commission on Judicial Discipline is looking at an issue of mayoral influence brought up in the ethics complaints, though Lee isn’t the target of that investigation. That investigation stems from a separate complaint, which is not public.

In February that commission charged North Las Vegas Municipal Judge Sean Hoeffgen with judicial misconduct, alleging he “has taken positions or made decisions or allowed it to appear that he has taken positions or made decisions, regarding the administration of the court which were improperly based on his perceived desires of the North Las Vegas Mayor or City administration instead of the best interests of the court,” according to the charging document.

Contact Bethany Barnes at bbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find @betsbarnes on Twitter.