McDonald recall petition sneaks in under wire

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 | 10:06 a.m.

A grass-roots effort to recall Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald pushed right up to the 5 p.m. deadline to submit petitions Tuesday.

In fact the bound blue volumes volunteers say contain 3,300 signatures arrived at the city clerk's office so close to the deadline that the city had to lock them up for safekeeping overnight.

Beyond the security hyped for the petition's safekeeping, the recall effort has even more similarities to the battle for the White House nearing a conclusion in Florida.

First the petition will undergo a hard count to see if proponents did get the 2,995 signatures required to force a recall election.

Secondly, the Clark County registrar's office will scrutinize each signature to verify if the person is a valid registered voter.

If the petition still has 2,995 signatures at the end of the process, McDonald is expected to challenge the petitions in District Court with a lawsuit that could evoke even more Floridian references.

"We don't have dimples and chads, but there will be a lot of scrutiny," said a former councilman, Steve Miller, who has organized the recall effort.

As recall committee chairman Russ Driver signed the appropriate paperwork at the city clerk's office, David Smallwood stumped for recall votes in front of the television cameras.

"Mr. McDonald is the political version of Ted Bundy," Smallwood said. "He's a nice guy who gets cats out of trees, helps dogs and goes to church.

"But the evil that he does behind the scenes has got to stop," Smallwood added.

Asked if a reference to a serial killer was out of line for McDonald, who has been found guilty only of city ethics violations, Smallwood said he was only trying to imply that McDonald seems like "the nice guy next door."

But in the next breath, Smallwood compared him to child killer John Wayne Gacy, a murderer who befriended some of his victims by dressing as a clown.

The sideshow surrounding the recall effort made it difficult for many Ward 1 residents to sign the petition.

Smallwood, who lost his real estate license for failing to pay child support, said Miller helped detract from the recall effort by nominating himself to replace McDonald.

Miller himself dropped that effort after realizing he wasn't getting enough support and that it was confusing would-be signers.

The volunteer effort ran into numerous snags during the 60 days they had to collect signatures from 25 percent of the number of Ward 1 residents who voted in the 1999 election.

First they mailed recall letters to Henderson, not only outside of the ward, but nowhere near the city.

Next they collected signatures from residents who were drawn out of Ward 1 during last year's redistricting and had to throw out about 1,000 signatures.

Despite the foibles, Miller, Driver and Smallwood each said the recall is necessary to remove an unethical councilman.

"He's quite popular in Ward 1, and I commend him for those things," Miller said, referring to McDonald's success building a constituent base by filling potholes and installing speed bumps. "But we're talking ethics."

The Las Vegas Ethics Review Board unanimously determined McDonald violated city laws twice in trying to broker the sale of Las Vegas Sportspark and in attempting to thwart a tavern license request by ordering city employees to conduct additional measurements to show the building's proximity to schools, churches and other bars.

The Nevada Ethics Commission will consider the same citizen complaint the city already voted on when the board meets in February. McDonald was exonerated with a stiff scolding by the state board in July on a separate issue.

The state board has the authority to begin impeachment proceedings.

The city's board will determine Dec. 21 whether to begin criminal proceedings against McDonald in the city's Municipal Court. If McDonald is convicted of the misdemeanor ethics charges, he will lose his council seat.

McDonald would not comment Tuesday.