Friendships blur picture of where to draw the line

Adrienne Packer

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 11 a.m.

Last September, head-spinning plans for a valuable swath of land along the Las Vegas Strip were unveiled before the Clark County Commission. The presentation was expected to finally decide the fate of the prized property.

A championship golf course, a Formula One racetrack and an Andre Agassi tennis facility are vying for 155 acres of land for their $30 million projects.

In the end, the projects didn't make the decision remarkable; it was that a series of abstentions left the vote up to only three of seven county commissioners.

Soon after, abstentions on a zoning change that allowed for a low-income apartment complex forced the Las Vegas City Council into a 1-0 vote.

"Oh, my goodness, it can get ridiculous, can't it?" Mark Rom, an associate dean of public policy studies at Georgetown University, said after being given a quick rundown of the votes. "People need to act like adults."

Elected officials in Southern Nevada don't know how to act anymore.

The Las Vegas Valley has been mired in debates about whether ethics complaints have merit or whether the Nevada Ethics Commission is an effective entity. Lost in the din has been the meaning of ethics and the definition of an ethical politician.

Incidentally, Rom was quick to guarantee the phrase "ethical politician" is not an oxymoron.

"It is someone who holds the highest personal standards for their behavior so that you could be proud of what you've done when reporting this to family, friends and constituents," Rom said.

"Ethics involves not moral issues, but issues of public officials' accountability and openness and honesty," Ed Davis, director of state issues at the national office of Common Cause, said.

Debates about government ethics sweep across the country in waves. President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky triggered the latest wave nationwide, but Southern Nevada was already riding its own swell.

Clark County Commissioners Lance Malone and Yvonne Atkinson Gates became centerpieces of conversations about ethics beginning in 1997 when they approved a list of potential McCarran International Airport concessionaires that included longtime acquaintances.

Neither commissioner revealed the relationships with applicants, landing both in trouble with the Ethics Commission.

Subsequently, a series of ethics complaints was lodged against prominent politicians such as Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and Dario Herrera, a former state legislator who was running for County Commission at the time.

When the typically loquacious and opinionated Ethics Commission chairwoman, Mary Boetsch, was asked to analyze what happened with ethics and Southern Nevada after the airport controversy, she offered only two words: "It exploded."

The contract-awarding process at the airport was the first time the Ethics Commission openly punished elected officials.

While the media and voters repeatedly pounded Gates and Malone, fellow politicians tried to protect the commissioners' reputations and portrayed them as victims.

Former State Assemblyman Larry Spitler, chairman of a county-assembled ethics task force, said Gates and Malone did nothing that hadn't been done in the past.

"The people who got snagged in this net probably did it because this is the way it was done all the time," Spitler said. "I don't think a commissioner sat down and said, 'Oh, we're going to do it differently; this time we'll have a list.' "

To outsiders who may not fully grasp how politics in Las Vegas works, the excuse that the same contract-awarding process has been used for years simply doesn't fly.

" 'That's the way it has been done for years' is not a good excuse," Rom said. "It's one the International Olympic Committee is using right now. It has always accepted gifts and kickbacks; that doesn't mean it's ethical behavior."

Davis said financial-disclosure reform became a hot issue simply because voters want to know who has close ties to whom. And when decisions are made about contracts, the process should be competitive and open.

"That did not sound like a good way to conduct the public's business," Davis said of the county's process. "You want to make sure the process is open."

Gates and Jones were pulled before the state Ethics Commission more times than any other politicians last year. While their reputations may have been damaged, both strongly believe they are ethical politicians.

Gates continues to defend herself despite being admonished by the Ethics Commission for privately meeting with casino executives to discuss opening a daiquiri business at the MGM Grand.

When asked whether she thinks she is ethical, Gates was quick to respond.

"You better believe I do," she said. "I have never done anything as an elected official to benefit myself or my family. I've never asked anyone for anything."

During a recent National Public Radio show, pollsters who had predicted Clinton would be run out of office after the Lewinsky scandal said Americans care less about practices such as infidelity than behavior that results in financial gain.

Perhaps that is why ethics has become such an important topic in Nevada. Although few people can explain why, suddenly people are talking about ethics. It certainly is not because of the volume of complaints registered with the Ethics Commission; that number dropped in 1998.

"I have never been able to figure out what makes people act," Spitler said.

Aside from guidelines that instruct elected officials to abstain from voting on issues involving relatives or close personal friends, financial gain -- or pecuniary interest -- is the primary element in most states' ethics laws.

Critics of the ethics panel say it doesn't put enough weight on whether elected officials benefit financially from votes when the panel investigates cases of potential conflicts of interest.

Too much emphasis may be placed on simple business relationships and friendships.

"Any politician worth a damn has a million friends; that's why they're in office," former state Sen. Thomas "Spike" Wilson said. "If they had a commitment to each one, government wouldn't work."

Rom said an effective method that elected officials can use to determine whether it's proper to vote might be to ask themselves whether they would object if their decision made the headlines in the newspaper.

"People need to ask themselves, 'Is the conflict real?' If so, recuse yourself," Rom said. "If it is a perception, explain why you're going to vote."

Rom said that is the advice he offers to his public-policy students, who more and more frequently ask how they can avoid ethical pratfalls if they ever hold elected office.

Following Clark County's 3-0 vote, UNLV ethics professor Craig Walton lauded commissioners for at least divulging their relationships with the various developers.

"What is so horrible is when you have to find out about this stuff from a reporter; that looks fishy," Walton said. "We need to reverse this. Instead of being fishy and playing your cards close to the vest, we need to be open."

Experts agree that elected officials are always safer if they disclose their relationships and, if they engage in unethical behavior, it is important that the media report it.

"Without the press exposing government corruption, these stories would never see the light of day," Rom said.

In fact, Rom said he believes the media should replace ethics commissions, which would allow voters directly to judge a politician's actions. If voters feel the elected official acted inappropriately, they can demand changes through recall efforts.

Davis said he is a firm believer in ethics commissions but emphasized that they need to be properly staffed, funded and efficient. Otherwise, he said, they don't work.

"You need an ethics commission that can look at conflict-of-interest problems and take an objective view, not fellow legislators who may be beholden to someone for their job," Davis said.

Gates said she, too, believes there should be an ethics commission, but emphasized that the laws should be more concise. But the county commissioner agreed with Rom's gauge to use when voting on an issue.

"It's like looking at yourself in the mirror and knowing whether the decision you made is the right one," she said. "I can explain why I voted on something and why I think it's right. That's very important."

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