Photo/Dennis Myers
On May 13, Martinez, center, and school board members David Aiazzi, left, and John Mayer listened to school board chair Barbara Clark react to the police report on the Sparks Middle School shooting.
Attn: Tesla parents
by the media and Superintendent Martinez, the Board understands that last week’s actions may be void under Nevada law,” said school board chair Barbara Clark in a prepared statement. “Rather than debate this complicated issue, we have agreed that last week’s events are void.” But Martinez said he will not drop his lawsuits against the board.
Nevada remains the wrong place to raise children, according to the newest “Kids Count” report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the leading statistical tracker of the well-being of children. Out of 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, Nevada ranks 47th in the economic well being of its children, 47th in their health care, 44th in family and community support for children, 50th in education. The state overall ranks 48th in the nation. We’d report more detail on this (low birthweight babies? fourth graders lacking proficiency in reading? single parent families? high housing costs?), but this has been more or less Nevada’s profile through the entire 25-year history of the Kids Count report. The report can be read at www.aecf.org/work/ kids-count/.
Specifics came late
Name brands Reno Mayor Bob Cashell is not the only big name who contemplated going into the medical marijuana dispensary business (“Cashell may seek med license,” June 5). In Las Vegas, Las Vegas Sun publisher Brian Greenspun applied for one of the licenses as a part of Integral Associates. In a recent Sun column, he wrote, “If Nevada voters have expressed overwhelming support for the use of medicinal marijuana, it should be provided by the people who are committed to this state and this community, the people with the most to lose, and the people who can make it happen. ... There is some promise already for applications for diseases that could come without the dangerous side effects of current prescription medicines. That science and research lie ahead. Why shouldn’t it happen here?” Last week Greenspun sold his shares in the two gambling companies to members of his family after state gambling regulators said they would not permit casino licensees to also hold medical dispensary licenses. In Nye County, school board member Mike Floyd joined Green Life Productions LLC, which applied for a license but finished out of the money. The county is allotted only a single dispensary and on July 16 the Nye County Commission approved as qualified five groups that applied. Green Life finished seventh. Another group that included former Clark County senator Sandra Tiffany did make the cut. The final choice of who gets the licenses is made by state government.
Senate grinds to halt The bad feelings between the party floor leaders in the U.S. Senate is dragging business to a halt, according to the Washington Post. “The Senate went three months this spring without voting on a single legislative amendment, the nitty-gritty kind of work usually at the heart of congressional lawmaking,” the Post reported on July 20. “So few bills have been approved this year, and so little else has gotten done, that many senators say they are spending most of their time on insignificant and unrewarding work. … Senators say that they increasingly feel like pawns caught between Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose deep personal and political antagonisms have almost immobilized the Senate.” The newspaper quoted Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island: “It’s pretty bad, and I don’t think there’s any way to fix it.” Illustrating the story was a photo McConnell and Reid standing next to each other, both frowning while saying the Pledge of Allegiance. In McConnell’s home state, The Courier-Journal in Louisville recycled the Post story but went another way on the photo, using a shot of the two men seated side by side and smiling big like best friends.
—Dennis Myers 8 | RN&R |
AUGUST 7, 2014
Marriage of convenience Martinez return leaves some issues unsettled On the day Washoe schools superintendent Pedro Martinez returned to his job, he had to give a speech to a large educaby tors’ gathering at Truckee Meadows Dennis Myers Community College. As he was standing waiting to be introduced, he was approached by Washoe School Board member Howard Rosenberg, one of the members who had supported
“Rather than debate this complicated issue, we have agreed that last week’s events are void.” Barbara Clark Washoe County school Board chair suspending Martinez while his credentials were investigated. As the crowd watched, the two men exchanged a few words and then Martinez embraced Rosenberg. Social amenities thus sealed the end of the episode of the suspension. If it is the end. Martinez was put on paid leave, according to the board, when he refused to cooperate in a contractual administrative process designed to get at the truth of questions about his claim to being a certified public accountant. His refusal was allegedly a breach of contract and came in such
a manner that the board members were offended by his demeanor, which triggered their decision to put him on leave. The board acted in what appears to have been violation of the Nevada open meeting law, and rushed the process instead of including the public. The board’s attorney, however, said it acted under a section of the law that exempted it from open meeting provisions. On July 31, the School Board decided to cut its open meeting losses and invited Martinez to return to work, and he agreed. “According to your version of last Tuesday’s events, my clients made a decision or took action concerning Superintendent Martinez’s employment contract in violation of the Open Meeting Law,” school board attorney Kent Robison wrote to Martinez attorney William Peterson. “If your accusation is true, whatever ‘action’ that was taken is void. I have no reason to disagree and concur that whatever ‘action’ that was taken last Tuesday with regard to your client’s contract is void pursuant to NRS 241.036. Accordingly, my clients respectfully ask that Superintendent Martinez resume his duties and responsibilities immediately.” “On advice from outside counsel, and because of the position taken
The turnaround came just as the board strengthened its position with a court filing describing a dramatically different scenario under which the superintendent of schools was suspended than the one he put out to the public at the time. Their account raised concerns, particularly among businesspeople, of whether Martinez’s conduct as an employee had been appropriate. Martinez initially told reporters he was (1) fired because of a (2) dispute over his certified public accountant credentials. His version, which was parroted in most news reports and ran uncontested for a week, was forcefully challenged on July 29 when the Washoe County School Board filed a list of particulars, only one of which is the CPA matter. The filing in state district court reaffirmed that Martinez was not fired. It then went on to say the superintendent increased the number of administrators in the school district, shuffled principals around the district, and failed to carry out a board-budgeted item, all without consulting with the school board, misled the board on personnel, ignored parental concerns about special education students, and excluded the school board in violation of his contract, and then refused to participate in a quasi-judicial administrative process to which he bound himself in his contract, instead “display[ing] a hostile, belligerent, uncooperative and defiant attitude and demeanor [and] walked out of the legal discussions without participating in the legal meetings in good faith and in accordance with his contractual promises.” The school board paid a high price for delaying so long to give its version of events. Had the board released this information promptly after its June 22 meeting, or made the process more public, it might not have faced such harsh community reaction. In greater detail, the filing charges: • After the school board budgeted for additional school counselors, Martinez failed to hire them. • “Repeated complaints” from parents—particularly parents of special education students—were ignored by
