County to get millions for jobs

CARSON CITY — More than $15 million in federal stimulus money is on its way to retrain laid-off workers in Clark County and provide summer jobs for teens.

The state Board of Examiners is expected to give approval today to contracts with the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board to allocate the money.

John Ball, director of the investment board, said the goal is to train people laid off from the residential construction, finance, gaming, hotel and commercial construction industries for work in health care and green energy jobs. The money will also be used to assist people leaving the military.

The investment board will request bids from organizations to provide the training, which Ball hopes will begin by July.

About $4.5 million will fund summer jobs for teenagers.

Rosie Boulware of the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board said 50 agencies have already applied to provide jobs in lawyers’ offices, school district maintenance and forestry.

The teens must be paid minimum wage and can’t take a job that would otherwise be filled by an adult. Boulware expects at least 1,500 teens to get employment. Last year the investment board turned away 600 young job seekers, she said.

The state attorney general’s office argues in a recent motion that it has no conflict of interest in prosecuting Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki on charges he misappropriated college savings program money when he was state treasurer.

Krolicki has argued that because the office acted has his legal adviser on the program, it is a conflict of interest for the office to prosecute him.

In a motion, Chief Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen acknowledged the Attorney General’s office did review some of the contracts at issue, but argued that the office reviewed the form of the agreements and not whether they should be entered into.

Krolicki, in his motion, said several former and current deputy attorneys general were “witnesses to material facts in the case.”

If the attorney general is permitted to wear the hats of prosecutor, witness and legal adviser in his trial, it would violate his due process rights, he said.

Krolicki asks that the grand jury indictment be dismissed.

Hafen and Senior Deputy Attorney General Thom Gover appeared before the Clark County grand jury last year to present evidence on Krolicki’s handling of the college savings program funds.

The grand jury indicted Krolicki on felony counts of misappropriation and falsification of accounts by a public officer. It also indicted Krolicki aide Kathy Besser on one count of being a principal to the crime of misappropriation.

A trial is set for later this year.

Hafen said Krolicki must prove “that the appearance of unfairness is so extreme that the public trust in our criminal justice system will not be maintained unless the attorney general’s office is disqualified.”

The lieutenant governor cannot meet that burden, Hafen said.

Sun Capital Bureau Chief

Cy Ryan can be reached

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