Henderson councilwoman to give up post

Kathleen Vermillion plans to resign from the Henderson City Council today to spend more time with her children and her job directing a charity for homeless teenagers. The resignation will take effect Jan. 1.

An emotional Vermillion said Monday that her 19-year-old son Alexander, her oldest child, was recently convicted on a charge of misdemeanor drunken driving in Henderson and is in a San Diego drug and alcohol treatment center.

"He's a great kid, brilliant," she said. "But he was partying way too much. He's in a very strict rehab center for underage drinkers."

She blames her son's troubles partly on her council and charity jobs -- both of which require significant time away from home.

"He was 16 when I started campaigning," said Vermillion, who has served on the council about 2½ years. "Some days I start working at 7 in the morning and don't get home until 10:30 or 11 that night. They never see me."

Vermillion's daughter, 15, is an honor student, and Vermillion wants to do whatever she can to keep her on that track.

"I have to spend as much time as I can with her for the few years I still have her at home," she said.

Vermillion, who until recently toyed with the thought of running for the state Senate, said her son's DUI and a daughter whom she sees only sporadically while juggling two careers forced her to rethink her priorities.

The single mother also has three foster children at home.

But a mother's need to spend more time with her children is not her only incentive to leave public office. She said the board of directors of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, the nonprofit charity she founded about a decade ago, gave her an ultimatum.

"They told me I had to choose," she said. "They came down really hard on me. But for 10 years when I needed them, they were there; now I need to be there for them. This (charity) is a full-time job."

The homeless partnership does far more than raise money.

"It's a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year job," she said.

The charity has helped about 10,000 homeless teenagers get off the street and into stable environments since it opened a decade ago, she said.

"When you get a phone call at 2 a.m. and it's a homeless teenager in crisis, you get out of bed. This takes total commitment."

When the economy went south, she said, the number of homeless teenagers in Las Vegas went up.

"I was overwhelmed," she said. "But then my son made me remember, first and foremost, I'm a mother.

"For me it's all about priorities," Vermillion said. "The charity is suffering because of my work on the council, and I had to choose. I choose my kids and my charity."

Vermillion will make the announcement at a special City Council meeting to select the next city attorney at 5 p.m. today. That selection has created some controversy. One of the two finalists for the job, which pays up to $199,000 a year, is Josh Reid, the youngest son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

There are allegations that the elder Reid put undue influence on Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen and the City Council to hire his son, a charge city officials adamantly deny. But Vermillion said she plans to abstain from the vote. She said Reid did call her to "put in a good word" for his son.

She also said Rory Reid, the senator's oldest son and a former Clark County commissioner who ran for governor last year, serves on the Partnership for Homeless Youth board of directors and one of the senator's granddaughters interned for her last summer.

"I have obvious conflicts, but that's not the only reason why I'm not voting tonight," Vermillion said. "I don't want to saddle whoever the City Council appoints as my replacement with any decisions made by me."

Contact reporter Doug McMurdo at
dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.