Under scrutiny after child’s death, Clark County targets news coverage

In a rare move, Clark County’s head spokesman is using the county’s website to complain about a recent Review-Journal article about Family Services and to accuse its author, reporter Yesenia Amaro, of working to “paint the department in an unfavorable light.”

On Thursday communications director Erik Pappa emailed Las Vegas media, saying “It’s been several years since we’ve used this ‘Setting the Record Straight’ Web page. You may be interested.” Pappa included a link to his critique, saying it will soon appear on the government website’s home page.

The county’s unusual public rebuke comes amid heightened public scrutiny of Family Services. A blue ribbon panel is now examining deficiencies in the county-run child welfare system.

The article published online on Jan. 10 and in print on Jan. 11, noted that Clark County commissioners in 2007 unanimously approved a resolution committing to goals for improving child welfare. Those reforms include placing no more than one unrelated child younger than 2 in a foster home at any time.

The article also noted that 16-month-old Michell Momox-Caselis and an unrelated 9-month-old child last year were placed in the same foster home, where on Oct. 12 Michell died from an antihistamine overdose. Foster father Joaquin Juarez-Paez, 37, is believed to be responsible for the overdose. He committed suicide that same day.

Pappa is most critical of the headlines that appeared on the print version of the article: “County policies ignored by DFS” and “Toddler who died should not have been in home.”

“These are goals, not policy,” Pappa wrote. Besides calling the headlines inaccurate, Pappa charged that “the content of the article is similarly slanted and apparently designed to create an impression that DFS staff intentionally ignored board-approved County policies.”

Review-Journal Editor Mike Hengel said Pappa’s complaints were reviewed and the newspaper stands by the article and by its author.

“The problem is not with the reporting,” Hengel said. “We’ve been fair and much more accurate in our reporting than Mr. Pappa has been.”

In an emailed response Monday to a complaint from Pappa, Hengel noted the article never called the resolution a policy, as Pappa asserts.

Amaro did not write the headline, he said, noting that it correctly follows the dictionary definition of “policy” as a “a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures especially of a governmental body.”

Hengel said the county never responded to an offer to consider publishing a county-written opinion piece airing its critique.

Only the first of the five pages of the 2007 resolution appears on the county’s website to support Pappa’s critique. Not making the cut was a page stating the commission’s call for a system to “be developed and implemented by Oct. 1, 2007, ensuring that all new policies developed pursuant” to an agreement made to head off a state lawsuit would be implemented. That pledge was quoted in the Jan. 10 article.

Pappa said only one page was posted because only one was needed to make his point. Asked if other pages, including one mentioning policies, were left out to mislead the public, Pappa said his statement speaks for itself, but then added: “I can easily add that in the morning.”

In criticizing the newspaper article, Pappa hammers home the resolution’s three references to the word goal, implying that the author ignored the wording. He didn’t acknowledge the article used “goals” or “goal” four times, but never refers to a policy. He declined to say if he took that into consideration.

Pappa also complained that the article noted that the population of Child Haven, the county’s emergency shelter for abused or neglected children, exceeded mandatory limits around Thanksgiving. He said Amaro failed to write that the number has since declined.

However, Pappa failed to disclose that in writing on Jan. 9 and in subsequent conversations Amaro asked him for statistics showing the number of children under age 2 at Child Haven. As of Thursday the county has provided only a total headcount, ignoring information relevant to the article.

Pappa wouldn’t say why he hasn’t provided the information or if he is deliberately withholding public records.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1.