Monday, Sept. 21, 1998 | 11:09 a.m.
I write in defense of our county commissioners.
Not that they need my help, mind you.
But a recent vote by the Clark County Commission has spawned a flurry of scurrilous rumors and insulting innuendoes about the political process in Southern Nevada.
Critics say the action lends credence to the belief Las Vegas really does merit the title bestowed upon it by George magazine as one of the "10 most corrupt" communities in the nation.
The vote concerned competing plans to build a golf course on public land along the Las Vegas Strip south of Mandalay Bay, the giant new resort being built by Circus Circus Enterprises Inc.
The commission's decision to award the development to big-time campaign contributor Billy Walters had the cynics crying "foul."
Well, the critics clearly don't understand how things are done here in the Entertainment Capital of the World. So I thought I'd explain. First, a bit of background.
The commission selected Walters' plan to develop a $33 million, 27-hole golf course complex on 155 acres of public land over a competing $60 million-plus bid by promoter Tommy Baker, who wanted to weave a Formula 1 track through an 18-hole golf course and stage an annual Grand Prix auto race there. A third bid by an underdog out-of-state golf course developer who had teamed up with Las Vegas tennis star Andre Agassi wasn't really in the running.
Of the 1.2 million residents of Clark County, about 1,199,991 favored the F-1 plan, not only because it would subsidize greens fees for local golfers and thereby comply with federal law governing use of the land, but also because it would bring tens of thousands of free-spending Grand Prix race fans to a community starving for visitors.
But the Baker plan was opposed by Walters, the two owners of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a couple of Circus Circus Enterprises Inc. executives, the chairman of another casino company -- and three county commissioners.
Walters' opposition was expected. After all, he's made a fortune convincing bureaucrats to turn over public land to him -- free -- so he can build golf courses in Clark County, which boasts some of the highest greens fees in the nation.
And the opposition of the two LVMS owners -- casino magnates and campaign contributors who wrote commissioners a letter saying an F-1 race would be bad for Las Vegas (unless it was run at their track 20 miles from the Strip) -- was also expected.
So, too, was the opposition of another casino boss who, 20 or so years ago, tried running F-1 races through a parking lot about the size of the one at your neighborhood Albertson's. The drivers and fans objected, thus ending our first experiment with Grand Prix racing.
But the opposition of Circus and the county commission wasn't expected. In fact, the Baker plan made so much sense that Walters, rather than risk losing out altogether, began negotiating with Baker's partner, lobbyist Sig Rogich, over a possible joint venture between the two front runners.
The negotiations were moving along smoothly until about a week before the commission's scheduled vote. Then Walters wangled a closed-door 1 1/2 hour meeting with Circus honchos, walked out with a smile on his face, told the Baker-Rogich group he was no longer interested in talking to them, and denied he'd cut a deal promising Circus preferential tee times -- which would violate the law governing use of the land.
Circus also insisted it had no deal with Walters. But it fired off a letter to the commission saying the noise from the F-1 race, which would be run once a year, would disturb its customers.
Circus' opposition was unexpected, since Baker had offered to rent all 12,000 rooms at Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay for a minimum of three nights during race week. Most casino companies whose stock price was sinking faster than its newest resort would jump at such an offer.
And the county commission's opposition wasn't expected because its members had already voted -- 7-0 -- to approve the Baker plan several months ago. In the process, they'd lauded his vision and the project's potential to benefit Las Vegas.
Furthermore, the commissioners have always insisted they consider such projects based on which offers the most benefits to the most people in the community.
Now, you might be naive enough to think an F-1 race subsidizing a golf course costing as much to build as Shadow Creek but, according to federal law, open to everyone in Clark County at rates comparable to those of other municipal courses would have offered the most benefits to the most people in the community.
But our commissioners knew clearly knew better. They realized that:
1. Television coverage of an annual F-1 race would expose Las Vegas to an estimated 500 million people around the world -- free!
This free exposure could conflict with the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority's costly new advertising campaign, which is aimed foreign markets including Europe, a hotbed of F-1 racing.
2. We don't need any more events that bring 100,000-plus people to Las Vegas. Look at the traffic problems we have during Comdex and the Consumer Electronics Show.
3. Many of those 100,000-plus people would come to Las Vegas bearing large amounts of foreign currency. Who can justify the time-consuming and complicated process of converting piles of marks and francs, pesos and pounds, yen and baht into dollars?
4. The commissioners showed an admirable willingness to reverse their prior votes, especially after listening to the arguments of Walters and Circus, both of whom contribute large amounts of cash to political campaigns. Hey, if a couple hundred grand doesn't get you some quality time with your local politicians, why contribute at all?
5. The commissioners also showed an admirable unwillingness to waste any time listening to presentations from the Baker and Agassi groups, which wanted to respond to the arguments offered by Walters and Circus but haven't made any political contributions recently. See No. 4.
6. Circus Circus' fears of noise are justified. It built the billion-dollar Mandalay Bay next to the flight path of the busiest runway at one of the busiest airports in the nation.
Mix the high-pitched whine of two dozen F-1 cars whizzing around a race track for about six hours each year with the thunderous roar of 747s and DC-10s taking off every 90 seconds or so and you could trigger a seismic event in the already shaky ground beneath the resort that could send Mandalay Bay plunging through the center of the earth to, well, Mandalay.
7. Money isn't everything. Circus, whose stock has lost more than 70 percent of its value in the past two years, made a principled stand in rejecting Baker's offer to buy 36,000 room nights at 125 percent of rack rate. Name another gaming company whose management would do that!
8. Money isn't everything to the commissioners, either. They made a principled stand in rejecting Baker's guaranteed payment to the county of at least $500,000 a year, opting instead to give Walters the land for nothing the first 10 years.
9. Walters himself has assured us that -- even though neither he nor the county will make any money off his golf course for 10 years -- greens fees will stay "low" for locals. Name another golf course developer who'd tie up $33 million for a decade just to keep local golfers happy!
You cynics should simply shut up. Rather than criticize the political process, join it. Spread a few hundred grand around, and you, too, might someday find yourself in control of 155 acres of public land along the Las Vegas Strip, where the most recent transaction netted a price of $11 million an acre.
Do the math.
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