Expensive, unnecessary campaign flier at heart of attempt to can cop union’s chief

(John Smith of Las Vegas Review-Journal) – The internal politics of the Police Protective Association, usually locked away in the police union’s backroom, is spilling into the public with the battle over the ouster of Executive Director Chris Collins.

And it’s getting uglier by the day. The union’s executive board, led by its director Scott Nicholas, on Saturday, voted unanimously to ask Collins to step down after more than seven years as the PPA’s leader and most visible personality. According to a widely circulated memo to the membership, Collins attempted to prevent the executive board from “communicating with the membership about pending legislation and the future of the Executive Board” in an apparent attempt to prevent his ouster. He also threatened to remove individual executive board members if they defied him, according to the memo, and in doing so violated the union’s bylaws.

Nicholas filed a complaint with the PPA against Collins alleging a variety of actions that constitute “misconduct, malfeasance, or nonfeasance” in office.

The complaint alleges that Collins in 2014 spent an additional $150,000 for a mailer late in the campaign to assist sheriff’s office candidate Larry Burns when he “had good reason to believe Burns could not win, regardless of spending more money.” It also alleges Collins failed to disclose the contents of a poll that showed Burns was 12 points behind and couldn’t catch eventual winner Joe Lombardo.

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