Goodman’s delay on LV City Council seats met with mixed reviews

Erin Neff

Thursday, Oct. 21, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.

Mayor Oscar Goodman's decision Wednesday to delay two City Council appointments is being viewed by some as postponing the inevitable and by others as a brilliant stall to clog the wheels of a fast-moving political train he hopes to derail.

Goodman downplayed the political nature of Wednesday's decision to hold the appointments for 30 days in an effort to get a ruling from the Las Vegas Ethics Review Board.

"I'm not a politician," Goodman said. "I'm a baby in this."

Some City Hall observers agreed, calling the move a "childish" one that will come back to haunt Goodman if the two candidates close to appointment Wednesday do eventually persevere and hold grudges over the delay.

The two new council seats are the result of redistricting and would increase the council size to to seven members, including the mayor.

Early Wednesday morning word emerged that Councilman Michael McDonald's two choices for the council seats -- Lawrence Weekly and Orlando Sanchez -- had the votes needed to win.

At around 8:30 a.m. Goodman informed the rest of the council that he was concerned about appointing two city employees to the council seats due to a city code related to lobbying.

That code requires a two-year "cooling off" period in which former city employees are not eligible to appear before the council.

Goodman said he was concerned that the rule may apply to Weekly and Sanchez, both of whom would have to quit their city jobs to become councilmen. Weekly is Councilman Gary Reese's ward liason and Sanchez is director of the city's Building Services Department.

City Attorney Brad Jerbic's decision that the code doesn't specifically apply in this case didn't satisfy Goodman's three-plus decades of practicing law.

"He may be right, I may be right," Goodman said. "That's why we'll leave it up to the (city's) ethics commission."

McDonald, who voted against Goodman's request to delay the appointments, said the ethics decision "has to be done for the betterment of the whole city."

But, he added, "I, personally believe the opinion and have supported our city attorney."

Reese also said he was comfortable with Jerbic's ruling and was surprised when he first heard Goodman's concerns about 20 minutes before the meeting.

"I think Brad's decision was the most compelling factor to me," Reese said.

"I wanted to get it over with," added Reese, who has gone through the appointment process himself. "I know what it puts the family through and this is turmoil for everybody."

Councilman Larry Brown, who voted with Goodman and Lynette Boggs McDonald to hold the item, said he wasn't convinced by Jerbic's decision.

"The mayor came down today (before the meeting) and said he had some concerns and Brad wasn't real specific in saying with certainty one way or another," Brown said. "Certainly having the extra time will help."

Brown said he had strong leanings toward one of the Ward 5 candidates, but still had trouble settling on which of about four candidates he wanted for the Ward 6 seat.

"I was very uncomfortable in 6," said Brown, whose ward currently encompasses the residents who will become Ward 6 inhabitants in January.

Boggs McDonald said she considered the lobbying code's application to Weekly and Sanchez, "an interesting legal question."

She was employed by the city until February 1997, and said she made sure to wait two years until representing her church before the Planning Commission and City Council on a building permit item.

"I had to be sure I was gone for more than two years," Boggs McDonald said. "I would have a better comfort level with an ethics ruling."

Boggs McDonald said she was prepared to make the appointments Wednesday, "until this question arose."

Both McDonald and Reese said they would ask the mayor to make the appointments Nov. 3 instead of Nov. 17.