Eight years ago, Sparks voters sent a clear message: The city's top prosecutor should be elected, not appointed.

More than 80 percent of voters supported the 2018 ballot question to keep the city attorney an elected position, which has been the case in all of the city's history. It's the third time in the past five-plus decades that Sparks residents made their position clear.

But this week, the city manager's office, in a move backed by the mayor, sought to recommend that the Legislature make the position appointed rather than elected.

In a nearly two-hour meeting Tuesday, members of the city's charter committee — a group of private citizens that helps oversee changes to the city charter that must ultimately be approved by the state Legislature — overwhelmingly spoke out against the proposal.

"I think we should be very careful before we disregard what the people have said," charter committee member Norma Kea said.

City attorneys are municipalities' top prosecutors, but their responsibilities often focus on the more mundane activity of providing legal guidance to city officials, such as council members. Sparks and Reno are the only Nevada municipalities with elected city attorneys. 

Proponents of appointment have long argued that because the role typically engages more with city officials than voters, making the position elected could allow politics to cloud the process. However, others argue that because city attorney offices handle city-level prosecutions, voters should decide who is in charge.

In Sparks, the city attorney's office is responsible for prosecuting cases in municipal court, which handles issues ranging from traffic violations to misdemeanors. It typically handles about 1,200 to 1,300 misdemeanor cases annually, City Attorney Wes Duncan said at Tuesday's meeting.

The latest effort comes shortly after Duncan won the race for Washoe County District Attorney. That means the position will be vacated and a successor will be appointed through 2028. There were disagreements on what should happen next.

At the meeting, Assistant City Manager Alyson McCormick said that keeping the position elected could discourage people from seeking the role if they do not want to get engulfed in politics. (The last time an incumbent Sparks city attorney faced an opponent was in 2008.) 

McCormick added that an appointed city attorney would be subject to greater accountability because they would serve at the pleasure of the city council, rather than at the ballot box every four years.

"[An appointed city attorney] provides purely legal advice to the city council without having to consider the political ramifications for their own campaigns, and leaves the politics to the mayor and city council," McCormick said. "Similarly, it would insulate the city attorney from some of those political considerations when rendering legal advice."

On the topic of the 2018 ballot question, McCormick said, "The city manager's office believes that question was not objectively phrased and with bias toward a 'yes' answer." The question had asked voters: "Should the City Attorney remain an elected non-partisan office within Sparks's government?"

However, a majority of the charter committee's members voiced concerns about making a recommendation that goes against what voters have wanted.

Duncan was also against the proposal. He said an appointed city attorney could "color" the person's legal advice to the council if the body has authority over their job security.

"It feels very freeing as a city attorney to be able to give candid legal advice to my city council and not have to worry about … 'Are they going to agree?' 'Do I have to be afraid of the legal advice that I'm going to give?'" he said.

A debate lasting decades

Efforts to make the Sparks city attorney an appointed position span decades. The question has been posed — and rejected — by voters three times, including as a ballot question in 1974 and an advisory question in 1991.

While it's common for cities to appoint their city attorneys, changing it from an elected to appointed position is unprecedented. Of the 13 cities whose charters are part of state law, none has changed its city attorney from an elected to an appointed position.

However, the debate to do so in Reno and Sparks has lingered for decades.

The Legislature passed a bill in 2017 that would have made the position in both cities appointed, but then-Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) vetoed it, saying that neither city had asked for the bill and the elected arrangement "preserves legal discretion and maintains a balance between attorney and client that should not be disturbed."

A similar bill had been introduced in 2007, but the city attorney provisions were removed.

'You can definitely foresee some tension'

Las Vegas City Attorney Jeff Dorocak, whom the city council appointed in 2023, said his hiring process was similar to any other job. The city posted the job opening online, he met with council members and the city's human resources team recommended his hiring.

He thinks appointments make the most sense for the position.

"You're appointed by the council to serve as their legal adviser," he said. "You can definitely foresee some tension if you have an elected city attorney who might get elected on certain campaign planks or ideas, and then they run into different policy approaches from the board for whom he or she is supposed to provide legal advice."

He also added that his role is different from other law enforcement positions, such as district attorneys, because he primarily focuses on providing legal guidance while most of the lawyers in his office focus on prosecutions.

Brad Johnson, a UNR professor who researches local governments, said the responsibilities of a city attorney can differ depending on if they are elected or appointed.

If a city attorney is elected, they could play a larger role in deciding the cases the city wants to prosecute, Johnson said. An elected city attorney also could have a greater degree of independence from council members, allowing them to more readily call out actions by city officials as illegal or inappropriate, he added.

Johnson also said appointed city attorneys, on the other hand, can have closer ties to council members.

"They've been assented by the board, and so therefore they can be more honest or they can provide more counsel," he said.