Letters - Sheppard Four Month Leave Of Absence

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WHAT SHOULD AN INFORMED VOTER EXPECT OF THEIR DULY ELECTED REPRESENATIVE ON THE CITY COUNCIL?

8/7/2007 Letter to the Editor
sent in by W.B. Clegg

I will preface what follows with the fact that I don’t reside in Ward 1 however, I am very active when it comes to participating in how Fernley government provides the services we the voters believe are necessary for, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For this reason I ask every voter in Ward 1 to seriously consider the request of their Councilman Mr. Shepperd to take a four month leave of absence to attend training in Stockton CA. that upon graduation will lead too his being employed in the California State prison system.

Mr. Shepperd states that it is his intent to continue residency in Fernley and therefore he sees no valid reason not continue in his elected position. My research does not reveal where at anytime during the campaign the man ever stated that he had already applied for this course he is embarking on a year and half ago. One would like to believe that a candidate for municipal office would think this was something he should advise potential constituents of while campaigning. Let’s see the closest major California prison to Fernley would probably be located in the area of Susanville. Yes, I know of people in the area that actually commute to work there. But since 99% of Fernley City Council meetings are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and sometimes at 5 p.m. and do continue till midnight at times how can one be sure he will able to be present on a regular basis. Why is being in attendance important? With a 5 person council the magic number is 3 with the exception of some items requiring a super majority then its 4. In order to consistently pass issues before the council anytime one member will be unavailable for 4 months creates a probability of not conducting the cities business. At the last council meeting two councilmen were absent and the Mayor was forced to ask those agenized for Public Hearing if they would like a continuance as they were required to achieve a 3 to 0 favorable vote for their issues to be passed. Continuances cost both the applicant and the City money.

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Mr. Shepperd would like to have the city allow his participation by telephone conferencing. He states that the city allowed another councilman to participate in a legal briefing by phone; a legal briefing is not a public hearing. Since it is now allowed for government agencies to hold public meetings by using video conferencing if the body approves it this might be a possibility. To do this requires expensive equipment at both ends which means this is not something you do out of a motel room..

It’s possible that there is a public perception that our elected council members only have an obligation to attend two council meetings a month. Yes, there are two regularly scheduled meetings occurring on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month. There are numerous other agenized council meetings, workshops, joint meetings with appointed city boards and commissions. Then there are the various boards at state and county level that are part of the every day operation of our city. Mr. Shepperd volunteered for a number of these. The mayor had to appoint another councilman to the City Audit Committee at the last meeting so it could go forward in a timely manner due to Mr. Shepperd taking an extended leave of absence.

In a letter to the Mayor, Council and residents of Fernley Mr. Shepperd says I am also of the opinion that as a city council body that we should not be making rules on leaves of absences from the council, but put in the hands of our constituents in the form of a recall election. I would suggest Mr. Shepperd carefully read NRS 266.240, it states that The city council shall determine its own rules of procedure, may punish its members for disorderly conduct, and with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of the city council, may expel a member for cause. I don’t believe that any of the other members had any intention of taking any action that that wasn’t supported by law to Mr. Shepperd or any other member.

Recall of a public official is defined in NRS 306. In fact the Secretary of State publishes a pamphlet that tells anyone interested how to go about doing it. Unfortunately a recall election is costly and you have to also hold a new election if the recall is successful and every taxpayer in Fernley will have their tax dollars used to hold it, not just the ward 1 residents.

It is easy to say that the city council should have put procedures in place that would have handled this situation before it occurred however, even the membership of the city council is human and they have had numerous swamps to drain and alligators to fight since the cities inception. We actually had a similar situation with our first elected councilman in ward 1. He for personal reasons needed to go to Idaho and determine if he wanted to relocate. To him if he was going to miss meetings and there was a chance that he might decide to relocate the only right thing to do was resign and he did, this just might be why the council didn’t perceive they could have a problem in regard to this in the future.

W.B. Clegg
Resident of Fernley