A heated, hour-long discussion occurred over Pahrump Town Manager Dave Richard's evaluation process during last Tuesday's town board meeting.

The evaluation process was put on the agenda a second time for clarification after it came to Richards' attention that Chairman Laurayne Murray submitted evaluation forms to staff members as well as former town board members.

The town manager said giving forms to staff and former town board members violates his employment contract, which states that he has to agree upon the evaluation process. He said only sitting board members can evaluate him, and he was supported to a degree by the board's lawyer.

"This leads me to believe that there might be requests for other evaluations from my customers, the citizens of Pahrump, but I have no way of knowing if that has happened," Richards said. "And I did not agree to that."

The town manager pointed out that the simple process has only been complicated once before, when last year Murray submitted evaluations to former town board members.

Since Murray decided to submit formal evaluations to staff members, Richards submitted several evaluations he said had been submitted at his request by "interested persons in the community."

The manager stressed that only one of the forms he submitted to the board was signed; the others were handed in by persons who preferred not to use their names.

"If you're going to accept evaluations from anyone other than you, then I'm going to recommend that you open up this process to the entire community," Richards said. "Because they are my customers, and I did not agree to have my performance evaluated by anyone other than you five."

In addition, he put blank evaluation forms on the back table so the general public, his "customers," could evaluate him as well.

Murray thanked Richards for the additional evaluations, which she said were "exactly what I was looking for."

The chairman said she was only trying to get additional information so that she could ensure her evaluation was complete.

"I don't sit in the town office every day and observe Dave's interaction with people that come into his office and with this community," Murray said. "So I am not at all opposed to taking information from many different sources."

Furthermore, Murray said, they had detected a suggestion she was looking only for negative information, which she said was untrue.

In addition, Murray said that when she spoke to people about Richards' performance, she took those informal comments into consideration as well.

"It's simply for my own education process," Murray maintained.

Vice Chairman John McDonald said that he doesn't feel Richards has a right to dictate the process.

Rust added that he'd never seen an evaluation process where the person being evaluated could prohibit information from being gathered.

Town Council Carl Joerger broke in at that point and said that since Richards' contract stated the process had to be jointly developed, the board had to take his objections into consideration.

"If Mr. Richards has an objection to a board member sending out evaluations to former board members or his staff, than that's a valid objection," Joerger said.

Furthermore, the lawyer said that since it was a major part of his contract, it could be considered a material breach of contract.

Murray responded that the word "process" was not specifically defined.

Richards stressed that his main objection was that the evaluations were submitted without his knowledge.

"If given the opportunity to discuss it, I would have agreed to it," Richards said. "We have no way of controlling the process. We don't know who's been asked, we don't know who's not been asked."

Pahrump resident Harley Kulkin said he didn't think unsigned evaluations should be accepted and that the process should be open to the public.

"Laurayne, you say that you go around asking people," Kulkin said. "But you're going to ask people in your own circles. You're never going to ask me what I think of Mr. Richards, and I'm pretty sure we're going to have opposing opinions."

The chairman took umbrage at Kulkin's insinuation that Murray had already decided to give the manager a negative review.

"I'm not out trying to form anything," she said, "I'm trying to get information."

Former board member Paula Glidden also addressed the board and admitted that she had completed and signed an evaluation.

Glidden pointed out that the board members change, but the town manager remained in his position. As such, she said it was a good idea to get information from people who had worked with him in the past.

However, Glidden also added "Dave's contract backs him up."

Commissioner Butch Borasky than addressed the board, telling them that, "This man has been nothing but professional."

Art Jones, another concerned citizen, told the board, "I think it's a personal vendetta."

Apparently referring to Murray, Jones stressed that he had been attending meetings for a long time and has seen many chairmen, board members, and town managers come and go, but there was one board member who consistently voted against Richards.

An hour later, the board decided to re-approve the previously agreed-upon process and take oral evaluations of the staff into consideration.