NLV councilman: Contract deal for city manager lacked transparency

A North Las Vegas city councilman said Monday he was unaware that the former city manager was the recipient of a three-year, $630,000 consulting contract until after he voted on the item.

Councilman Richard Cherchio said staff did not brief him on the May 1 item pertaining to the contract for Ryann Juden, whose last day with the city was in mid-May.

“If it’s something that is of exceptional importance, we’re normally briefed on it,” said Cherchio, acknowledging his role in overlooking the item. “It should have been done much more transparently than it was.”

A former city employee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday that she filed a complaint against Juden over the contract with the state ethics commission in September. The employee provided copies of the complaint and its receipt.

Juden did not respond to requests for comment to requests for commentabout the ethics complaint.

The item on the consulting contract was one of a group of ostensibly routine items on the May 1 consent agenda approved without discussion and in a single vote by the council. Cherchio, a longtime council member, said the item ought to have been on the council’s business agenda, where items are publicly explained by the staff and discussed by the council and the public.

“It should have been in an open session where people knew about it,” he said. “They have a right to ask those questions. It’s taxpayer money.”

Community activist Tyrone Jones said community groups and clergy members expressed outrage to him after the Review-Journal recently reported that the city paid nearly $1 million this year to Juden.

“You’ve got a lot of people upset,” said Jones, who until November served on a city advisory committee. “They’re not understanding this. There’s been no transparency.”

The city this year has paid Juden roughly $675,000 in severance, $137,000 in salary, $97,000 in unused vacation and sick pay, and $85,500 in consulting fees. Juden, whose base salary was about $300,000 a year, earned $453,900 last year as city manager.

Councilman Isaac Barron said he had been briefed on Juden’s consulting contract and was “fully in support of it.” Last week, Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Black said they, too, had been briefed and supported the contract.

Councilwoman Ruth Garcia-Anderson did not respond to requests for comment.

The city, through spokesman Greg Bortolin, declined to comment.

According to backup materials for the agenda item, the contract — which is broad in scope without listing deliverables — includes management, public affairs, leadership development, labor relations, strategic communications, policy analysis and advisory services.

The agenda item lists Juden’s company, Edge Strategies, formed in January, as the contract’s recipient. Juden’s name appears in agenda backup material at the end of a copy of the contract, below the line where he was to sign. The backup material also shows that Juden submitted the agenda item.

Pamela Dittmar, a former North Las Vegas employee who worked in economic development, filed the complaint with the Nevada Commission on Ethics. In the complaint, Dittmar stated it “appears highly inappropriate” that Juden was “using his former position in government to secure a contract with North Las Vegas.”

She cited a provision of the state ethics law that “prohibits public officers or employees from using their official positions to secure unwarranted privileges, preferences, or advantages for themselves, their family, or their business interests.”

Dittmar told the Review-Journal, “As a government employee, you are entrusted with tax revenue collected to benefit the citizenry of a community, not yourself.”

She said the commission told her it was investigating her complaint. Dittmar, an economic development specialist for the city until 2016, unsuccessfully sued the city of North Las Vegas, claiming retaliation.

Citing state statute, commission Executive Director Ross Armstrong said he could not comment on a complaint or even confirm its existence before a review panel “issues a determination in the matter.

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on X. Hynes is a member of the Review-Journal’s investigative team, focusing on reporting that holds leaders and agencies accountable and exposes wrongdoing.