Friday, Feb. 16, 2001 | 12:22 p.m.
Now that Michael McDonald has been told he violated ethics laws for the second time in three months, the Las Vegas city councilman said he has learned he needs to be more careful in his hands-on approach to politics.
"Hindsight's always 20-20," McDonald said Thursday after the Nevada Ethics Commission voted unanimously that he violated two subsections of the state's ethics law. "My actions could have been interpreted as they did."
The board ruled 6-0 that McDonald violated the law by crossing a "razor-thin" line between participating in and actually advocating the city purchase the financially troubled Las Vegas Sportspark to help McDonald's boss out of a bad investment.
The panel said McDonald violated another section of law because his employment for Sportspark investor Larry Scheffler at Las Vegas Color Graphics gave the councilman a pecuniary interest in "doing his bidding."
But the commission split 3-3 when voting on whether McDonald's behavior was willful, and thus deserving of a fine. Commissioner Jim Kosinski said it was willful because McDonald had been warned several times to avoid the issue due to his conflict, yet kept lobbying colleagues.
Kosinski, Rick Hsu and Hal Smith voted the behavior was willful, while Chairman Peter Bernhard, Skip Avansino and Lizzie Hatcher determined it wasn't.
"Willful violation to me means being cognizant of the ethical violation," Bernhard said after the daylong hearing. "I don't believe he was doing it willfully, but as you can see by the vote, it was a very close question."
During the eight-hour hearing at the Grant Sawyer State Building, commissioners sorted through a litany of testimony from 12 witnesses, including one who invoked attorney-client privileges to refuse answering questions.
But it was McDonald's colleagues who provided the information that led most commissioners to their findings in the Sportspark matter. The commission also unanimously ruled McDonald did not violate ethics laws by working behind the scenes to block a tavern license for political consultant Sig Rogich. City Manager Virginia Valentine, Mayor Oscar Goodman and City Councilman Larry Brown each testified about the way McDonald persistently lobbied them to buy the Sportspark.
"Councilman McDonald said that the folks who were involved in the Sportspark were good people," Goodman said, fresh off testifying at a city ethics hearing relating to his vote on Rogich tavern license.
Since Goodman was aware of McDonald's employment, "I said you better be careful."
Brown also testified at the city hearing in which the review board decided there was not enough evidence against four council members to proceed. When he returned to the state building for McDonald's hearing, he detailed how the councilman set up meetings with Scheffler about the potential sale.
When Brown went to enter one of the meetings at City Hall and saw McDonald coming in the room behind him, "I told (him) right to his face, Michael you don't need to be here. Shouldn't be here."
Valentine said she thought McDonald was "advocating" the sale of Sportspark because he made it a "high-level of interest" and had repeated conversations with her about it, including one in which he gave her actual figures for the sale.
"I think he made it pretty clear to me that he wanted the city to acquire the Sportspark," Valentine said.
The three feuding Sportspark partners, Scheffler, Linda Fernandez and Don Schlesinger, each told separate stories about McDonald's involvement.
Scheffler admitted asking McDonald to set up meetings for him at the city and said he often "ranted and raved" about his bad investment while working with McDonald at Las Vegas Color Graphics.
Schlesinger again alleged Scheffler and McDonald also were trying to sell the Sportspark to Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo because Rizzolo and his attorney, Dean Patti, toured the park "as potential investors" one night in May 2000.
Schlesinger also referenced a contract signed by his partners that would have sold Sportspark to either the city or a third party. Patti drew up the contract, piquing Schlesinger's notion that Rizzolo was somehow involved.
But when commissioners tried to ask Patti anything about the contract or Sportspark, Patti's law partner, Anthony Sgro, invoked attorney-client privileges, which frustrated the board.
"This is ridiculous," said Hsu, also a lawyer, when Sgro repeatedly responded to Bernhard's questions by saying his client could not answer.
The commission also failed to get any testimony in the Rogich matter from Annette Marie Patterson, Rizzolo's sister, and the founder of Universal Church for Life Enhancement that popped up close enough to Rogich's building to temporarily block a proposed topless club there.
Commission Director Polly Hamilton said Patterson, the bookkeeper at Crazy Horse Too, could not be located by subpoena servers.
McDonald's attorney, Richard Wright, said his client did not violate ethics laws in the Rogich matter when he instructed city surveyors to do time-consuming and costly field measurements between the Rogich building and several other taverns.
"What he did to me was clear," Wright said. "He called for something that was being overlooked to be fully explored.
"I don't think that is any improper act by any government official," he added.
But on the Sportspark matter, even Wright admitted the evidence was clear that McDonald had been participating.
"In hindsight, it's simple," Wright said. "I think he knows that, and I know that he should stay away from it."
Last year's appearance of the church and the contentious August council meeting that aired publicly the Sportspark controversy led to a detailed Metro Police investigation in which police determined they had probable cause to arrest McDonald.
District Attorney Stewart Bell declined to prosecute the case, saying there wasn't enough evidence to convict the councilman.
But citizen Bob Rose's ethics complaints worked their way through the system, first before the city ethics board and Thursday at the state level. In between, a citizen attempt to recall McDonald failed when organizers couldn't get enough signatures on a petition.
But the city ethics board's findings last November remain McDonald's biggest obstacle. That board authorized its special counsel, Frank Cremen, to file a malfeasance petition in District Court seeking to remove McDonald from office.
District Judge Jim Mahan has scheduled a March 20 hearing on the petition. Wright has filed a petition to dismiss the malfeasance charge. Arguments on Wright's petition are expected to be heard March 5.
If Mahan determines McDonald abused his public office, state law gives him the power to remove the councilman from office.
During his own testimony Thursday, McDonald told commissioners his relationships with other council members and Valentine are "poor" or have soured. Goodman has repeatedly said he thinks McDonald should resign.
But after the state ethics board did nothing to punish McDonald, his council seat appears safe at least for now. He is up for election in 2003.
"That's a long way's away," McDonald said after Thursday's hearing. "We'll go out and ask the people of Ward 1 whether they want us to run again."
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