Town manager's employment terminated

By MARK WAITE

VIEW STAFF WRITER

The Pahrump Town Board stunned some members of the audience by voting 4-1 last Tuesday night to terminate Town Manager Frank Hersman at the end of his probationary period Jan. 31. Town board chairman Tim Leavitt cast the dissenting vote.

Another prominent official, town attorney Len Smith, served notice he will be leaving in one year, after serving in that position for 12 years.

"I am an old guard and 12 years is a career for some people," Smith told the board. "Over the 12 years I've been here, you really haven't had to deal with legal problems because we cut them off before we got there (to court)."

Smith has been paid a $5,000 per month retainer. In a five-page letter, Smith said over the past three years legal matters he provides for the town of Pahrump have increased dramatically to about 80 hours per month, requiring nearly daily contact with town administration over personnel, contract matters, construction, ordinances, union activity and resolutions.

"This is of course due to the exponential growth of the Town of Pahrump over a relatively short period of time and the diversity of legal matters that are inevitably occasioned by this growth. Additionally, far more complaints are being filed by citizens for such things as Open Meetings Law violations, agenda violations and ethics violations," Smith wrote.

Hersman was hired at a July 12 town board meeting over four other finalists, who were narrowed down from an initial list of over 30 applicants.

Hersman was formerly a Nye County manager from 1988-90, assistant city manager in Austin, Texas from 1982-84 and worked as an adviser for the World Bank in the former Soviet Republics from 1994-98. Hersman requested a closed personnel session to discuss his performance, which lasted an hour and 20 minutes. When the board reconvened in open session at almost midnight, nearly 60 people were still in the audience awaiting the news.

Newly elected town board member Jane Wisdom made the motion not to renew his employment past Jan. 31.

"The discussions made by this board were not made in haste," Leavitt told the audience. "This is not the first difficult decision we've had to make."

But Laura Billman, a member of Informed Citizens, said there had been no indications he was doing a bad job either in public meetings or in the press. She said it was unfair to judge his performance after only six months and lauded Hersman for requesting an audit of the Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Service.

"How could you give him such little notice and the public no notice?" asked resident Sally Devlin. "He has done nothing but the very best for Pahrump."

Smith mentioned there was never any discussion of criminal conduct brought up against Hersman.

"When you hired this man, you asked him to keep the departments of this town in budget. He's done that," Chuck Patti said. "I think there's something rotten in Denmark."

But Paul Willis said, "It was my understanding when Mr. Hersman was hired it was from the last town board, of which only two remain."

Bill Yates complained the town board gave one year to hire a replacement for the town attorney, it should keep Hersman until his replacement is found. The town board didn't discuss advertising for a new town manager or appoint an acting town manager.

" I want to commend the board for its wisdom in this action," former Nye County Public Administrator Clare Ramsey said. Ramsey brought up a $250,000 lawsuit Hersman won against Nye County for his termination, when the town board debated hiring him last July.

Mike Cosgrove, the former city manager in Wells, Nev., for seven years, had been Pahrump town manager from Oct. 1997 to Aug. 1999. Before that it was Scott Nielson from June 1996 to April 1997 and Roger Baltz from Sept. 1993 to March 1996.

"The decisions I made tonight I received input from citizens and people in the community," newly elected town board member Jim Mutton said.

"This is probably one of the toughest nights I've had since I was elected," town board member Mary Wilson added. She said there were "30,000 people that have talked to me."

Hersman, describing the closed personnel session after the meeting broke up, said "only one person offered any information, Mike Johnson. His comments were I was lacking in leadership abilities."

Johnson brought up an incident where Johnson asked where the paper work for the transfer of water rights on the E.A. Collins Development were located, Hersman said, where he incorrectly told Johnson they were in the town clerk's office. "I told Mr. Johnson subsequently it was discovered it was not in the clerk's office, it was in the hands of the title company."

A second point raised by Johnson in the closed session concerned the water connection fees to be charged by Aquasource, a company formerly in charge of the Collins water system, Hersman said.

"That agreement is not in place, the arithmetic on the agreement obviously would change. The buildout on the Collins project was supposed to be far ahead of where it is now so it has to be changed," Hersman said. "I told him (Johnson) that the rate structure was no longer valid."

"I told them that when I first came in there was a known polarization of the town board," Hersman said. "I had to work with a divided board."

Hersman was hired by a 3-1-1 vote last July. Former town board member Charlie Gronda voted against hiring Hersman saying he wasn't satisfied with the resumes of the finalists, former board member Ed Bishop abstained, saying he wanted a consultant to review the candidates.

Leavitt said after the meeting it would be appropriate to again appoint Town Clerk Peggy Warner as acting town manager. Warner was acting town manager in the year between when Cosgrove left until Hersman was hired. Regarding the dismissal vote Leavitt said simply, "This was my first experience in real politics."

At a hospital board meeting last Wednesday, Hersman said if he was still employed after his probationary period, he might have had a contract allowing for severance pay if he was terminated. Cosgrove had four months' severance pay written in his contract, but was never paid it because he resigned.

During the public meeting, board members stressed this wasn't a hasty decision. In follow-up remarks later in the week, new board members Wisdom and Mutton said they didn't have a hidden agenda to get rid of Hersman during the campaign. It was only the second town board meeting since both candidates took office.

"I have formed this opinion for a number of months. This was my decision informed over a month here and it was a very difficult decision. We felt it best obviously not to give reasons, we don't want to cast any negative light on anybody," Mutton said. "Obviously the public is going to look at this differently because they haven't been as closely involved with things going on."

Mutton said Hersman knew his probationary period "was just a trial program" so it was no surprise to him this action was coming.

"I had no preconceived plans while I was running for office," Wisdom said. But she added after she won election, "we were thrown into all of the things that happened on the board."

"We also had conversations with Mr. Hersman many times and there were many issues brought up with Mr. Hersman, not just by me," she said. "On those occasions, we were thrown in with the workings of the town. I think it's just something when it was brought to my attention, 'hey the deadline's up, you have to make a decision' and it wasn't an easy one."

Both board members said the Mountain Falls project didn't have anything to do with the decision. Cosgrove denied rumors he will be asked to come back as town manager.

"I have never been approached by the town board members to take that job," Cosgrove said. Instead, Cosgrove said he wants to see the Mountain Falls project completed. "I'm going to keep working as hard as I can to keep this project going."

Wisdom indicated she wanted the public to be involved in the process of finding Hersman's replacement.

"I'd like to appoint five people from the community to sit down and look over all the applications and narrow it down to five and give it to the board to look at," Wisdom said. The town board could then narrow the five finalists down to three applicants who would be called in for interviews, she said.