'Personnel matter' is criminal matter and our business

A city of Clovis employee was recently arrested, accused of carrying a gun in a Dallas airport.

This may or may not be cause for alarm, depending on the details that have not been made public.

What’s clearly cause for alarm, however, is the effort city officials have put into preventing taxpayers from finding out about the incident and their efforts to quash those details.

Here’s what we know after more than a half-dozen public records requests sent to four public entities:

• Paul Nelson, 40, the city’s information technology director, was arrested June 11 “for bringing a weapon into the secure part of the (Dallas Love Field) airport,” said Dallas Police Department Public Information Officer Debra Webb.

• We know Nelson was on city business at that airport — flying to Dallas from Clovis the day before — based on travel records obtained through records requests filed by The Eastern New Mexico News.

• City of Clovis policy states “Transporting non work-related weapons on city property or at city functions will be considered a threat of violence and is prohibited.”

• And city officials say Nelson still works for the city and has not been placed on administrative leave.

The list of things we don’t know about the incident is way longer, primarily because city leaders won’t talk about it.

City Manager Tom Phelps has declined to answer most questions, claiming it’s all a “personnel matter.”

We think it’s a criminal matter, based on Nelson’s arrest, and taxpayers have a right to know about it since he was working for taxpayers at the time.

Phelps has declined even to acknowledge that Nelson was arrested.

Somehow, Phelps seems to have gotten the idea the taxpayers work for him, that he decides what they need to know, when they need to know it, if they need to know it at all. And he’s apparently decided we don’t need to know.

So we don’t know if Nelson was waving a gun around the airport ... or if he forgot he had packed it with his underwear ... or if maybe another passenger slipped it into Nelson’s things without Nelson’s knowledge ... or if it wasn’t a gun at all, but a water pistol and the airport security personnel are idiots.

We also don’t know if Nelson carried a gun when he boarded Boutique Air in Clovis, which would raise concerns about the security at the city airport.

We don’t know these things because our top city employee — no doubt acting on advice of counsel we also pay for — has declared it’s none of our business.

To be clear: They’re saying it’s none of our business that a computer wizard employed by taxpayers is accused of violating federal firearms laws while working for taxpayers.

To be fair, Phelps has provided documents related to Nelson’s trip when those documents were specifically requested. But this should not be some kind of game to see who is the smartest about gathering/hiding public information.

Phelps should have issued a press release the day he found out about Nelson’s arrest, detailing everything the city knows and everything the city is doing in response.

Instead, he’s hiding — who knows what — behind “it’s a personnel matter” ... as if taxpayers are somehow not the boss of all city employees.

And Phelps is not the only one keeping city secrets.

The city commission, which hired Phelps in April, has held two secret meetings related to “personnel matters” in recent days, including one on Thursday evening.

We don’t know if they’re talking about the Nelson incident, what Phelps is doing about the Nelson incident, or maybe whether they should change city policy and allow all the employees to carry guns at work — which might be OK, but should be discussed in public.

All of the information will one day be brought to light. Until then, it’s disappointing our employees at City Hall are working so hard to keep us in the dark.

Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Clovis Media Inc.’s editorial board, which consists of Publisher Rob Langrell and Editor David Stevens.