City Council to decide hotly lobbied lobbyist contract

Erin Neff

Monday, Dec. 18, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

One of the most intensely lobbied contracts in the city of Las Vegas this year will be awarded Wednesday with none of the three most active firms winning the bid.

When three federal lobbyists hyped their services to the City Council in May, the board grew mired in a policy discussion about how many lobbyists the city needed and whether it was getting the right representation for the $164,000 it spent annually.

After reviewing proposals from the leading municipal government lobbyists on Capitol Hill, city staff will recommend the council hire Ball Janik LLP.

"Ball and Janik really focused in on their skills and their experience," Betsy Fretwell, assistant city manager, said.

When Fretwell sent the requests for proposals and advertised in the Washington Post, she said she wanted to find a firm who knew Las Vegas' goals and had strong relationships in Washington to accomplish them.

Previously the city was represented by both Alcalde & Fay of North Las Vegas and US Strategies of Washington, D.C. Alcalde was paid $68,000 and US Strategies $96,000 for their work.

During last spring's serious lobbying for the contract, Mayor Oscar Goodman's friend, Tom Letizia, represented Alcalde & Fay, and County Commissioner Dario Herrera stumped for a third firm, Cassidy & Associates.

After the dizzying presentations, and with the upcoming elections in doubt, the council decided to keep the status quo only until Nov. 1, then allow firms to bid on the contract.

"They really wanted a full-service firm," Fretwell said. "We kind of made it a little bit easier, the way we structured the (request for proposals), to pick one full-service firm."

The city conducted interviews with all five firms that responded. They were Alcalde & Fay, Ball Janik LLP, the Barton Company, Cassidy & Associates and David Turch and Associates.

Ball Janik LLP was founded in 1982 in Portland and now has 40 attorneys and nine lobbyists with offices in Washington, D.C., Portland and Bend, Ore.

Fretwell said Ball Janik's experience in local governments, tax and transportation issues gave it an edge. The firm has represented the state of Nevada on transportation issues but has never lobbied on behalf of a city in Nevada.

One of the concerns the council had last spring was whether the city's lobbyists would be able to successfully represent Las Vegas when they also lobbied on behalf of cities Las Vegas would compete with for federal dollars.

Ball Janik representatives will address the council on Wednesday, with the expectation that the council will award the contract to them. Fretwell said she hoped to negotiate a contract comparable in cost to the ones the city had with its two former firms.

In its written proposal to the city, Ball Janik proposed a three-person staff to handle the city. James A. Beall, the former staff coordinator for the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; Victoria Cram, an urban lobbyist who joined Ball Janik in 1989; and John Lopez, a Nevada native and former senior legislative assistant to former U.S. Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., were proposed as the team.

However, Lopez was recently tapped by Ensign, now a U.S. senator-elect, to serve as his chief of staff. Ball Janik, therefore, suggested Cram would perform 60 percent to 70 percent of the city's work, with another staff member expected to be assigned to the city in the future.