9/11 remembrance events

■ The Las Vegas Fire Department will conduct a tolling of the bells ceremony at 6:45 a.m. at Fire Station 5, 1020 Hinson

St. They also will hoist the flag to halfstaff.

■ Students will assemble at 7:55 a.m. at the Joseph M. Neal STEAM Academy playground to hear a message from their principal, Denise Murray, whose husband was a Port Authority police lieutenant previously stationed at the World Trade Center. Murray and her husband lost 32 of their Port Authority police friends on 9/11.

■ A new flag will be placed on the Barbara Edwards Memorial at Palo

Verde High School’s soccer field as part of a school-only ceremony at 8:30 a.m. Edwards was a foreign language teacher at the high school in Summerlin. She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

■ The UNLV College Republicans will hold a 9/11 memorial service at 10 a.m. at the student union amphitheater to honor the nearly 3,000 lives lost on 9/11. Earlier, the group will plant a flag in the student union courtyard for each life lost. The flags will remain until 5 p.m.

■ Firefighters, a color guard and bagpipers will march at 7 p.m. in downtown Las Vegas. Their route will start at the old Downtown Transportation Center on Casino Center Boulevard, turn left on Fremont Street, stop at the Third Street Stage for a moment of silence and continue up Third Street to Stewart Avenue.

Club and Casino on Water Street, when he was attacked by three people. He was on his way to his son’s home.

But in the months following the attack, the Henderson Police Department has been tight-lipped. The Police Department has released no details about Robert Gamboa’s death, citing an open investigation.

“What I can tell you is that a detective has been assigned to the case,” department spokesman Rod Pena told the Las Vegas Review-journal on Tuesday. “But I can’t comment on anything because it’s still active.”

Pena did, however, confirm that officers were called just before 9:20 p.m. to the area of Water Street and West Atlantic Avenue, near the casino, on the same night as the incident described by Tony Gamboa.

In the months following the attack, Robert Gamboa, a father to five sons and one daughter, was determined to survive. He wanted to stand next to his son on his wedding day and to meet his great-granddaughter.

“Everything good is happening so close to his death,” Tony Gamboa said.

Now, the youngest Gamboa, born just one week after Robert’s death, will grow up without her great-grandfather.

“He was just so excited to meet her,” said Tony Gamboa, who has been busy with preparations for his upcoming wedding.

But on Sept. 23, when Tony Gamboa marries Brianna Valadez, he said he’ll be thinking of his dad.

“I really just wish he could be there with me,” he added, speaking almost at a whisper.

‘Radio silence’

Seventeen. That’s how many security cameras Army veteran Ricky Hillis counted in the area where Robert Gamboa, whom he described as his “fallen brother,” was attacked.

As the Gamboas juggle the emotions of losing a loved one while welcoming two new family members, Robert’s second family, the Henderson veterans community, has grown

GAMBOA

that the district pays any settlements in those cases and banks the excess if the payouts come in short of the forecast.

Big-pocket perception

“Unfortunately, our experience is that people will tend to see the district as having big pockets, and so they sue us for anything that happens on district property or involving district vehicles,” Searer said. “Sometimes under (Nevada Revised Statutes) we’re not even liable for incidents, but it still takes time to prove that. And that means money.”

As the risk management account has increased in recent years, the district’s legal budget for its general counsel has also been exceeded.

In2016,thedepartmentspent nearly $5.4 million, more than its budgeted amount by about $1.8 million, district budget documents show. That’s even more than the $4.2 million spent in fiscal 2015, when the department also spent $635,478 more than the budgeted amount.

General Counsel Carlos Mcdade said that’s partly because of the cost of outside counsel.

Outside lawyers hired

The district’s 10 in-house lawyers manage day-to-day legal duties, in-

cluding writing contracts for schools and providing legal guidance for principals. But some complex cases require outside lawyers to litigate them, Mcdade said.

“Some cases required hundreds of hours and multiple people and two to three months worth of time,” Mcdade said. “For me to do the equivalent of that with my in-house staff, I’d pretty much have to take half the office and dedicate them to one case. Doing that directs them away from their job, which is providing direct supports to schools.”

Outside counsel fees have risen since 2014, when the district paid $1.2 million to 12 different firms. In 2015, that number rose to $3.3 million, and in 2016 it was nearly $2.9 million.

The district notes that litigation costs are an estimate, since the office can’t control the number of lawsuits filed against the district or the outcome of those cases.

“Attorneys often advise their clients to sue the district, and there’s a financial impact to that,” Searer said. “Unfortunately, that $3.8 million could’ve gone to schools, and now it’s going to sit in an account.”

Contact Amelia Pak-harvey at apak-harvey@reviewjournal. com or 702-383-4630. Follow @ Ameliapakharvey on Twitter. Review-journal staff writer Meghin Delaney contributed to this story.