Ethics panel delays hearings on commissioner

Thursday, Oct. 16, 1997 | 9:54 a.m.

The Nevada Ethics Commission has rescheduled a pair of hearings for Clark County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates to mid-November.

The hearings, which had been scheduled for Friday, will be moved to either Nov. 13 or 14 at a site in Las Vegas that is yet to be determined, said Louis Ling, a deputy attorney general who handles matters for the six-member ethics panel.

One of the hearings will determine whether the commission will accept Gates' withdrawal of a request she made for an opinion from the Ethics Commission regarding her involvement in a frozen daiquiri business. The commission can either withdraw or vote to proceed with a full hearing, Ling said.

Such a hearing would probe Atkinson Gates' private business venture with developer Ed Nigro in the frozen beverage business.

The board also would look into whether she may have perjured herself Sept. 26 when she said in testimony before the Ethics Commission that the district attorney said she would not have a conflict of interest voting on matters at the MGM Grand.

She and Nigro were close to signing a lease for a daiquiri outlet at that Strip resort, a property on which she and the rest of the commission make regulatory decisions. The district attorney issued an opinion stating she would have been in conflict operating a business there.

The other hearing would consider Gates' Aug. 19 vote to give two concessions at McCarran International Airport to Michael Chambliss, a political consultant whom she paid at least $37,500 during last year's re-election campaign. The commission had launched an investigation into this matter on its own.

The hearings were rescheduled to mid-November at the request of attorneys for Gates, who sought more time to prepare, Ling said.