Friday, May 23, 2003 | 11:53 a.m.
Former County Commissioner Erin Kenny apparently was notified that she is a target of the FBI's ongoing political corruption investigation linked to strip clubs.
Her lawyer, Frank Cremen, this morning did not dispute a report that he had acknowledged that Kenny had received a "target letter" on May 14, the day that the Cheetahs and Jaguars strip clubs were raided.
"I'm not saying anything more about it. This has become a feeding frenzy," Cremen said.
Attempts to reach Kenny were unsuccessful.
Bill Marion, a public relations consultant who has worked with Kenny -- most recently on a controversial proposal to build thousands of homes adjacent to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area -- said Kenny's contact with strip clubs was limited to discussions with dancers.
Andrea Hackett, organizer of the Las Vegas Dancers Alliance, was working to get the dancers politically active, and many of the dancers supported Kenny in her campaign for lieutenant governor last year, Marion said.
"She (Hackett) invited Erin to come to some of the clubs and meet the dancers," Marion said. "Andrea has been out trying to register them to vote and get them politically interested, and that is why she met with them. The dancers were thrilled that she was there.
"There was no relationship with the trips that she (Kenny) took to the owners of the properties," Marion said. "I don't think they (the owners) were even there when she went there."
Marion said he did not remember which clubs Kenny visited.
Hackett could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kenny has been one of the most controversial commissioners in recent memory. Her relationships with some of her own constituents have at times been stormy, as when she backed a "neighborhood" casino in her Spring Valley district in 2000 that hundreds of nearby neighbors opposed.
Kenny carried the vote by a 3-1 margin, but a special state board created under 1997 legislation specifically designed to limit the number of casinos in residential areas overturned the approval.
One of the other two votes came from then-Commissioner Lance Malone, who told a crowded commission chambers that he would have to break his promise to vote against the project.
That switch contributed to political opposition that helped throw Malone out of office two years later. Malone, who as a commissioner campaigned against strip clubs, later went to work for Mike and Jack Galardi, the owners of Jaguars and Cheetahs.
Kenny also became a consultant after losing her bid for lieutenant governor last year. She recently has represented developer Jim Rhodes, whom she often supported during her two four-year terms on the County Commission.
Rhodes has proposed building as many as 5,500 homes on top of Blue Diamond Hill, site of a gypsum mine surrounded on three sides by the Red Rock Canyon conservation area. Rhodes' efforts have been hurt by development restrictions passed without a single no vote by both the Nevada Legislature and Clark County Commission.
Kenny's support for the development proposal is not the only time she has bucked popular opinion. As a commissioner, she backed creation of a new children's hospital under the auspices of the county. Voters rejected the notion.
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