Constable follies

Assemblyman Steven Brooks is not the only Southern Nevada elected official testing the limits of the public's trust. Las Vegas Constable John Bonaventura is still hard at work making the case for the elimination of his office.

Mr. Brooks, D-North Las Vegas, is making news because of his obvious mental instability and arrest on suspicion of threatening the life of incoming Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick. On Thursday night, he posed a Review-Journal photograph - shirtless.

Mr. Bonaventura, on the other hand, has displayed a calculating creativity in finding ways to do whatever he feels like. Voters gave him a foot of rope in 2010, and he has responded by taking a mile, embarking on an unaccountable empire-building campaign that likely will crash and burn before he's up for re-election. His most recent stunt, reported Friday by the Review-Journal's Lawrence Mower, involves creating a separate bank account to ensure lawyers received payments opposed by Clark County commissioners.

Mr. Bonaventura hired the lawyers to sue the constables of Henderson and Laughlin over a jurisdictional dispute. The county wouldn't cover the legal fees, so Mr. Bonaventura deputized the men and awarded them $5,300 salaries. That tactic was blocked by the county, too. The creation of the separate account appears to be legal, however.

Constables collect fees for serving court papers and carrying out evictions. Almost all of their operating and personnel expenses are covered by those fees. As a result, they have very little oversight. Mr. Bonaventura has taken advantage of that lack of oversight. Among his stunts: hiring deputies with sketchy backgrounds; funding the political candidacies of associates through his PAC; and an embarrassing stab at a reality TV series.

"The transparency is woefully lacking," said County Commissioner Steve Sisolak.

The vast majority of our elected officials take their oaths seriously and serve the public with integrity. Having to answer to the electorate is, most of the time, more than enough oversight to keep politicians honest. Instead, Mr. Bonaventura is behaving like a bug with a life span of a single day, acting on instinct to annoy as many beings as possible and consume as much as possible before the next sunrise. Is it any wonder Mr. Bonaventura has been tied to Mr. Brooks, alleged to have offered the assemblyman armed protection?

"The county doesn't run this office. The constable does," said Mr. Bonaventura's spokesman, Lou Toomin.

That might very well change. The Legislature is expected to consider a bill that would make constables appointed positions, rather than elected, a step that would give local governments direct oversight of the offices. Mr. Bonaventura is selling the plan better than any lobbyist ever could.