DA won't void disputed airport concessions

The Clark County District Attorney announced Thursday he will not void airport concession contracts that were the focus of a grueling four-day Ethics Commission hearing last month.

The state commission ruled that county commissioners Yvonne Atkinson Gates and Lance Malone violated ethics laws last summer by submitting friend's names as potential concession operators in Concourse D at McCarran International Airport.

The two then failed to disclose their relationship with the applicants.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said Thursday that the controversial airport contracts do not fall under a statute that says government contracts agreed upon in violation of the law are voidable.

"The concession agreements under scrutiny at the Ethics Commission hearing were not governmental contracts, but were subleases to which the county is not a party," he wrote in a letter to County Manager Dale Askew.

While Marriott Corp. and W.H. Smith Airport Services Inc. are the master concessionaires at the airport, the county board still must approve sublease contracts.

Marriott and W.H. Smith submitted their recommendations to the commission in August 1997 so that those awarded contracts would have plenty of time to make improvements to their space before the grand opening of the D Concourse in May.

Bell said the commission approved Marriott's six subleases and W.H. Smith's seven subleases unanimously. Not all of the people Gates and Malone recommended were chosen.

And, Bell wrote, even if votes by Gates and Malone were disallowed, the contracts would have received more than the required four votes.

The district attorney's letter also says it is not unlawful for an acquaintance of a commissioner to apply for a sublease or to lobby a commissioner.

"In fact there can be no doubt that many successful and unsuccessful applicants alike endeavored to lobby their position in this instance," Bell said.

"Quite frankly, there is no evidence that any of the sublessees is anything other than an innocent third party who would be damaged if the contracts were somehow able to be declared void."

Perhaps the most innocent party -- Clark County taxpayers -- would have been at greatest risk had the contracts been voided.

Bell was well aware that had the county negated contracts after the sublessees spent millions of dollars fixing up their concession spaces, a lawsuit likely would have been filed.

The potential threat may have prompted Bell into researching the statute related to voiding contracts.

In Bell's letter, he wrote that if the contracts were voided, "there is every reason to believe that the taxpayers would be held responsible for many, many millions of dollars in damages.

"This office has no doubt that the potential harm to the public far, far outweighs any potential public benefit."

archive