Friday, July 24, 1998 | 10:53 a.m.
RENO -- Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, who is a Democratic candidate for governor, and four members of the Las Vegas City Council have been ordered to appear before the state Ethics Commission.
The city officials are being asked to explain possible ethics violations in failing to reveal financial ties before voting against an application for a restaurant.
The meeting, scheduled for Aug. 14 in Las Vegas, comes only two weeks before the Democratic primary election in which Jones is battling Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas.
After an intense, closed-door, two-hour meeting of the Ethics Commission, Jones, obviously irritated, emerged and declined comment. She was whisked away from the session by her husband, Richard Schuetz.
Jones said today, "I have no problem with a public hearing on this issue. It may help clarify for all elected officials the (ethics) commission's stand on further disclosure of campaign contributions.
"But there was no impropriety here on the part of anyone," she said. "This (the vote against the restaurant) was of no material benefit to anyone."
Jones said the complaint and ethics commission hearing does not put a damper on her campaign for governor.
The Ethics Commission unanimously voted that there was probable cause to hold a full public hearing on the charges.
Chairwoman Mary Boetsch said the commission "is going to hearing on the merits of all of the allegations" involving Jones and council members Arnie Adamsen, Larry Brown, Michael McDonald and Gary Reese. Only Jones was present at the Reno meeting.
Steve Miller, a longtime critic of Jones, had filed the complaint with the Ethics Commission. After the hearing, Miller said, "This is showing corruption in government. You're showing people who are just feathering their own nests at the public's expense, and they are not talking about it."
Jones and the council voted unanimously on May 26 to deny an application for construction of a restaurant called Nick's Fishmarket on the corner of Sahara Avenue and Paseo del Prado Street.
The neighboring tenant is BankWest, which lobbied against the restaurant. William Boyd founded BankWest and Perry Whitt is a director in the bank. Both are executives in the Boyd Gaming Corp., which owns several casinos in Las Vegas.
Boyd Gaming contributed in prior elections to Jones and the council members. Whitt and Boyd are involved in a trust that loaned $4.3 million to Jones' husband in a land deal.
Four days before the council hearing, Jones phoned Boyd about getting a campaign contribution for her race for governor. Boyd said he talked to the mayor about the restaurant in that telephone call. Jones said initially she did not remember any conversation about the restaurant.
But Miller, who was present at the closed meeting, said afterward that Jones told the commission there was a brief mention about the restaurant vote during the conversation with Boyd.
Jones and council members did not disclose any of the financial ties before the vote in May.
Boetsch said the commission will delve into why the council members and Jones did not reveal they had received campaign contributions from the Boyd group. The commission also will look at the longtime friendship between Reese and the president of BankWest, Larry Woodrum, a relationship that Reese disclosed before he voted against the restaurant. The issue is whether Reese should have abstained from voting.
In the Jones case, Boetsch said the commission is going to look into the prior campaign contributions, her phone call to Boyd and whether she knew anything about the investments of her husband.
Jones and Schuetz were married in January and have a prenuptial agreement. The mayor said she did not know anything about the property deal, even though she listed the debt to Whitt and Boyd on a May 28 financial-disclosure statement.
Jones said she and Schuetz, a former president of the Stratosphere, keep their finances separate and rarely discuss them. Jones maintains she didn't know the details of the loan.
Judging from the testimony, Boetsch said, the union between Jones and Schuetz sounds "almost like a merger between banks as opposed to a marriage in the minds of some people who think there's more communication between husband and wife about significant financial issues as they appear to have in their marriage ..."
The commission will subpoena Whitt, Boyd, Schuetz, Las Vegas City Attorney Brad Jerbic, Woodrum and Clyde Turner, who is a partner with Schuetz in the land deal that involves 79 acres in northwest Las Vegas. Jones and the City Council members also will appear.
Miller said Jones and others repeatedly brought up as excuses the the mayor's cancer and the death of her husband's father. "I'm very sorry for both of them, but it's irrelevant. ... I let it be known that, as insensitive as it may sound, it should not be brought in."
Miller has a libel suit pending against Jones in the Nevada Supreme Court, stemming from comments she made about him while they were both running for mayor.
Marc Gordon, who heads the group that wants to build the restaurant, claims the council was swayed by influential businessmen and lobbyists from the bank. He has filed suit in district court to overturn the council's vote.
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