Hearings on LV monorail delayed

Adrienne Packer

Monday, May 1, 2000 | 11 a.m.

Hearings on the proposed Las Vegas monorail system reportedly have been delayed while the state's financial advisers await additional reports from the MGM Grand-Bally's Monorail LLC, sources said.

Meetings tentatively scheduled for May were to allow proponents and opponents of the $600 million system an opportunity to offer their arguments to the state Department of Business and Industry.

The business and industry division is expected to decide whether the state will grant the monorail's request for a $600 million tax-exempt bond.

Charles Horsey, director of the department's housing division, which is involved in bond issues, said the Public Resources Advisory Group (PRAG) -- the state's financial adviser -- must receive all reports related to the project before hearings are held.

The most significant report that has yet to be completed is a ridership and revenue study being conducted by Wilbur Smith Associates. The study, one of many done on ridership, is being funded by the monorail group.

"Their study isn't done yet so the meetings are a moving target; we don't want to put the cart before the horse," Horsey said. "This is a big and unique deal so there is not a template to use for an example. It's a one-of-a-kind financing for everyone involved."

The monorail group, which is led by consultants Bob Broadbent and Cam Walker, hopes to build a 4-mile extension to the existing system linking the MGM Grand hotel-casino to Bally's hotel-casino. The new segment would run from Bally's to Paradise Road and north to the Sahara hotel-casino.

Broadbent said Friday he is confident the Wilbur Smith report will be finished this week and they will be prepared for meetings in May. The Clark County Commission is scheduled to consider final approval for the monorail during its June 20 meeting.

"We're optimistic, quite candidly," Broadbent said.

However, further muddling the already lengthy decision process by the state is the departure of Steve Ghiglieri, the state's chief of business finance and planning.

Ghiglieri, who was expected to make the final decision on the bond issue, quit his job April 18.

Opponents of the monorail have suggested Ghiglieri felt pressured to sign off on a bond issue that many argue will end up in the hands of taxpayers. Horsey, however, said the job was too time-consuming for Ghiglieri, a single parent.

"He honestly was more excited by this project; you just don't get a chance to work on a project like this," Horsey said. "It's not deeper or more mysterious than that."

Jon Twichell, a California-based consultant who has been hired to fight the monorail, also has been disturbed by meetings held by the monorail's bond underwriter, Salomon Smith Barney.

A sign-in sheet for a Dec. 10, 1999, "all hands" meeting held by Salomon Smith Barney shows that business and industry Director Sydney Wickliffe, Ghiglieri and Horsey attended along with Broadbent, Walker and their attorneys from Jones Vargas.

Wickliffe did not return a phone message, but Horsey said the meetings are informational and the merits of the project are not discussed. That hardly appeased Twichell.

"The Business and Industry Department, specifically the director, is supposed to be an impartial person that is going to use the PRAG report and look at this in an even-handed manner," Twichell said.

"It is totally inappropriate if not unethical for (Wickliffe) to sit in on monorail meetings but not meet with people who have concerns about the project."