Abstentions cloud commission vote on Strip golf proposals

Three Clark County commissioners declared today that they will abstain from voting on the Strip golf complex that has presented a major ethical dilemma because they are friends with applicants.

They also abstained today during a vote on whether the County Commission should even discuss the item during a later portion of the meeting. The board had tabled the issue at its Sept. 1 meeting but Commissioner Lance Malone had placed the item back on today's agenda.

Today's abstentions leave the future of the multimillion-dollar, 163-acre project in the hands of the four other commissioners. Given the three abstentions and a lone no vote cast by Commissioner Lorraine Hunt, the vote this morning among the seven-member board to reconsider the issue was 3-1.

The item became bogged down in ethical considerations because applicants -- there are three competing proposals to develop the project -- are movers and shakers in the community and longtime friends of some commissioners.

One of those movers and shakers, longtime advertising executive and political consultant Sig Rogich, in effect, withdrew from one of the proposals. Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, his friend of more than 40 years, said Rogich has agreed donate his financial interest to charity.

Proposals have been made by U.S. Grand Prix-Las Vegas, formerly headed by Rogich; the Walters Group, headed by millionaire sports gambler Billy Walters; and Club Corporation of America.

Woodbury abstained citing his friendship with Rogich and acquaintances with other applicants. Commissioner Mary Kincaid abstained because she said she had friends behind all three proposals. Commissioner Lance Malone abstained because his father once worked for Walters at one of Walters' golf courses.

Mary Boetsch, a Reno attorney who serves as chairwoman of the Nevada State Ethics Commission, said it is "too soon to tell" if Rogich's withdrawal changes anything as far as potential ethics violations is concerned.

"The question is still the friendship (the commissioners had with him) and the fact that his partners still have an opportunity to make money (off the deal)," Boetsch said today.

"It's not enough to just know someone and consider him your friend. It's the length, depth and quality of that friendship" that has to be considered.

It has been suggested that elected officials should just be required to disclose the friendships and not abstain from votes, then let the voters decide whether they did right or wrong regarding their friends.

Boetsch said the problem with that is "that such a solution comes long after" the action is done which benefits a friend of the elected official.

After the golf-course issue was tabled two weeks ago, Malone asked that it be put on today's agenda. In the meantime, Woodbury and Kincaid sent letters to the Ethics Commission asking that the panel make a quick decision on whether their friendships with any of the applicants is reason they should abstain.

In his memo, Woodbury noted that Rogich and he were in the same class at Las Vegas High School. He also said in his memo that Walters co-sponsored a fund-raiser for him in 1996. Also, Woodbury noted that two of the attorneys for Club Corporation are former law partners.

Kincaid said she went to high school with attorney Mahlon Brown and tennis star Andre Agassi of the Club Corporation project. She said she has been friends with Rogich for 20 years and Walters for about four years.

archive