Commissioner unhappy with scheduled date of hearing

Jeff Schweers

Friday, Dec. 26, 1997 | 9:43 a.m.

Clark County Commissioner Lorraine Hunt is unhappy that her ethics hearing has been scheduled in March, so close to the filing deadline for the 1998 elections.

Hunt, a Republican, is up for re-election to a second term on the County Commission, but has reportedly told several people she will for lieutenant governor.

"Certainly the idea is interesting and intriguing, but right now my focus is the county," Hunt said.

Hunt has asked the ethics commission to expedite her hearing, but other matters have priority over the complaint against her, said Louis Ling, deputy attorney general for the ethics commission.

"It can't be done," Ling said.

The Jan. 22-23 ethics hearing agenda is full, with a whole day set aside to take up matters relating to County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates and her aborted frozen daiquiri business, Ling said. The second day is reserved for other matters, Ling said, including the drafting of regulations related to recent election reform legislation.

Since the February hearings are in Reno, Ling said, the March 19-20 hearings in Las Vegas are the earliest the ethics commission can take up the complaint against Hunt.

"The commission is attempting to move on these matters as quickly as possible," Ling said.

Hunt is one of four county commissioners under investigation for voting on minority-preference concession leases at McCarran International Airport's future D gates without disclosing any prior relationships or business dealings with those businesses.

She did not attend her preliminary hearing in November, but has since said she looks forward to going before the ethics commission to clear her name.

Hunt asked that the ethics commission hold her hearing earlier, but she has not heard back from the board.

"I too feel like Lorraine," said Commissioner Lance Malone, one of the four who face ethics hearings for voting on the airport concession leases.

"I'd like to get this over with, but what are you going to do?" Malone said.

Malone and Hunt both had a connection to GRR Group, which they failed to disclose prior to voting on granting the company a lease at the new satellite D terminal currently under construction at McCarran.

Malone's wife is friends with the company's president, Gay Reber. Hunt and Reber's father-in-law are co-owners of a commercial real estate parcel adjacent to her Bootlegger restaurant.

Other commissioners are Myrna Williams, who didn't disclose her longtime relationship with JV Ventures co-owner Judy Klein, who helped organize fund-raisers for Williams and Gates.

Gates faces a separate hearing for not disclosing her relationship with Klein, as well as Michael Chambliss, a campaign consultant who won two concession leases at the new terminal.

The January hearing will focus on the role Gates played in securing a lease at the MGM Grand for a frozen daiquiri franchise she and developer Ed Nigro had begun. She has since divested herself of the business, and Nigro said he returned her initial investment.

The ethics commission will also investigate whether Gates "made any misstatements or misrepresentations" about the business at a Sept. 26 hearing.

The second day on January's ethics hearings is reserved for other matters, Ling said, including the creation of new regulations related to SB 215, the campaign libel and slander bill that was part of the election reform package of 1997.

That law requires the ethics commission "to hold a hearing when a candidate claims that his opponent said something false about him" within 15 days of the filing of the complaint, Ling said.

"It's going to have to have a set of regulations in place as to how the heck it will regulate and hold these hearings within 15 days," Ling said. "It's going to be a real task for the commission."