Work begins on grand jury petitions

Work began Monday to validate signatures on a petition aimed at calling a Carson City grand jury.

Carson City Clerk-Treasurer Alan Glover said he hired two workers to check the petitions.

"They have to look at every signature," he said. "That makes it much, much harder."

Glover said signatures must be checked against the voter rolls for authenticity. Glover estimates that the workers made it through 15 out of about 250 petition packets, which vary from a single page of signatures to several pages.

He said legal questions about the petition have been sent to the Nevada Attorney General's Office.

"We forwarded them off to the state, but we haven't heard back," he said. "That's why we've started. I wasn't going to wait for him to do an opinion."

Glover is seeking to find out if the laws that apply to other types of petitions apply to Ron Weddell's petition.

Glover said his staff is marking the petitions where they have questions so they can go back once they have answers.

Weddell, who is seeking a grand jury to investigate several Carson City officials over a court case, said Tuesday the process is not going fast enough.

One of his concerns is that the statute of limitations expires Oct. 17 for two brothers whose confrontation with Weddell sparked the court case.

Weddell said he believes criminal complaints he has filed will prevent the charges from expiring.

The grand jury petition, filed Aug. 28, has 5,422 signatures, according to Weddell. Of those, 4,205 signatures must be verified by the clerk's office.

Another petition being checked by Glover's office is nearly complete.

With the exception of some paperwork, Glover said, the checking of signatures on a petition for a business tax proposed by the Nevada State Education Association is done.

There were about 2,600 signatures on the petition to be checked in Carson City. Similar petitions were submitted to counties statewide.

"The clock started ticking yesterday," Glover said Monday. "Sept. 21 is the day we have to submit it to the Secretary of State's Office."