Ethics board finds McDonald guilty

Erin Neff

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Violations

The Las Vegas Ethics Review Board found City Councilman Michael McDonald violated the following sections of the city's ethics laws:

(A) No public board member, officer or employee having the power or duty to perform an official act of action, related to a contract, transaction, zoning decision, or other matter which is or may be the subject of an official act or action of the City, shall knowingly: 1.) Have or thereafter acquire an interest in such contract, transaction, zoning decision or other matter, except as otherwise stated in this Chapter, except that this Subsection shall not apply to any public board member, officer or employee who shall disclose his or her interest and who shall disqualify himself or herself from consideration of such contract, transaction, zoning decision or other matter. (C) Appearances. No public board member, officer or employee shall appear on behalf of any private person, other than persons related within the third degree of consanguinity or affin ity, before any City agency or municipal court. (H) Special Treatment. No public officer or employee shall grant any spec! ial consideration, treatment or advantage to any citizen beyond that which is available to every other citizen. The board ruled McDonald violated (A)1, (C) and (H) related to his attempts to facilitate the sale of Sportspark to the city. The board ruled he also violated section (C) when he directed the surveyors to conduct additional field work.

After finding Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald guilty of numerous ethics charges Wednesday, a city board forwarded the matter for criminal prosecution and issued a harsh warning to other public officials.

"Any elected official bears the responsibility of going above and beyond to get out of any situation that presents an appearance of a conflict," said Las Vegas Ethics Review Board member Linda Young. "I think we have to send a statement out not only to ourselves but to everybody in public office."

The five-member board unanimously found McDonald guilty of violating three sections of the conflicts of interest code for his attempts to facilitate the sale of Las Vegas Sportspark to help his boss, Larry Scheffler, get rid of a bad investment.

The board also unanimously voted that McDonald violated one section of the conflicts of interest code by directing two city employees to conduct a survey of adult- or alcohol-related businesses near a building where the owners were attempting to win licensing to become a tavern.

"I think the councilman overstepped his bounds," added board member Eileen Brookman, who served in the state Assembly for 20 years. "You can't serve two masters when you sit on that board."

Frank Cremen, the review board's attorney, will now determine whether the violations constitute willful intent eligible for criminal prosecution through the city's Municipal Court.

The board unanimously authorized Cremen to review its findings and report back Dec. 21 about whether a misdemeanor charge will be pursued. If McDonald is found guilty of a misdemeanor, he will be automatically removed from office.

Wednesday's hearing, televised live in its entirety on Las Vegas ONE, Cox Cable channels 1 and 39, was something of a City Hall soap opera as employees citywide watched Mayor Oscar Goodman, Councilman Larry Brown and City Manager Virginia Valentine all discussing McDonald's constant private attempts to broker the sale of Sportspark despite his public abstention on the item.

"You cannot be publicly withheld from that matter and at the same time run up and down the hall making phone calls," said former judge Earle White Jr., the review board's chairman.

McDonald sat nearly motionless when the board members began discussing how they viewed the daylong testimony. After the hearing, McDonald said only, "I guess this is going further so I can't comment on anything."

During questioning by his attorney, Richard Wright, McDonald told the board he thought that abstaining from a matter precluded him from voting but allowed him to participate in discussions.

"I just provided information," McDonald said.

Wright had argued that McDonald had abstained from votes in the past, including a 1998 Metro Police budget item, even as he discussed the issues at play. Wright said that since nobody told McDonald he couldn't discuss items, he felt that he could.

But the board members said they felt McDonald did more than just discuss the issues.

Brown, Goodman and Valentine each testified about the numerous times McDonald talked to them about the city's possible purchase of Sportspark, including numerous calls to them during their late July business trip to Baltimore seeking to place the city's purchase of Sportspark on the agenda.

But McDonald told Cremen he didn't consider that lobbying.

"To be a lobbyist, you have to be paid for it," McDonald said.

Brown, Goodman and Valentine also told Cremen they had warned McDonald about his behavior when they learned Sheffler was an investor in Sportspark.

"I told him that he needed to be very careful about his involvement in this process," Valentine said.

Goodman added: "I said, 'Mike, be careful.' I felt that he was too involved, to be quite frank with you, in a project he was to abstain from."

Wright's witnesses successfully raised enough doubts about an alleged third ethics violation that the board didn't find proof that McDonald lied about a May 15 visit to Sportspark.

During a heated Aug. 16 City Council meeting, Sportspark partner Don Schlesinger alleged McDonald visited the park on May 15 to show the facilities to his friend, Rick Rizzolo, in an attempt to get him to buy the park.

Rizzolo, owner of the Crazy Horse Too strip club, said he only toured the park at McDonald's request to scout a site for a charity softball tournament.

Since Rizzolo was put on the stand by Wright, Cremen got a chance to ask him about the sudden opening of the Church for Universal Life Enhancement by his sister, Annette Marie Patterson.

Patterson, the bookkeeper at Crazy Horse, opened the church within 220 feet of a building owned by political consultant Sig Rogich just two days before a council vote on whether to grant Rogich's building a tavern license. City zoning requirement prohibit bars or adult clubs from being within 1,500 feet of churches, schools or other bars or adult clubs.

McDonald has been accused of helping Patterson open the church in an attempt to stave off the zoning of a bar eventually eyed for a topless club that would be less than a mile from Crazy Horse.

A police investigation determined McDonald actually worked to thwart Rogich. Under cross-examination Wednesday, McDonald admitted he told Goodman the tavern license could be the mayor's way to "get back at Rogich" for working against Goodman during his 1999 election campaign.

But Rizzolo said he was not aware of his sister's church until he read about it in the newspaper. He said after publicity surfaced naming him, he asked her to move her fledgling congregation.

Board members seemed surprised Rizzolo didn't know about the church, asking "Do you speak to your sister often?"

"Every day," he answered. "We don't talk about her ministry. I'm Catholic."

Wednesday's hearing also pitted two Metro detectives against Wright who spent a portion of his time with each witness decrying the lack of rules of evidence in play during the review board's proceedings.

And the 10th floor at City Hall will have even better defined factions now after one of McDonald's ward liaisons testified that Brown's liaison was lying in an affidavit when he said he overheard McDonald reference the church the very day of the April 5 council vote on Rogich's tavern license.

In between the Rev. Dave Casaleggio, testifying about the charity, condemned Metro for failing to interview him during their investigation of McDonald. The police report stated that detectives didn't find Casaleggio's story about the charity credible because it differed from what they were told by members of the charity's executive board.

"I've been a priest for 19 years and to be assumed a liar is just wrong," Casaleggio said. "If I am lying, come interview me."

Some of the more interesting statements to support Cremen's case in the Rogich building matter came from assistant city surveyor Paul Sullivan.

Sullivan said McDonald called him and fellow surveyor Nancy Peace into his office in March the day after an initial council discussion of the Rogich building request.

Even though McDonald had publicly stated his need to abstain on the issue the day before, he greeted Sullivan and Peace with a detailed map showing Rogich's building in relation to other taverns and schools in the area.

McDonald asked them to do a field survey to determine distances to each of the objects and said that overtime would be no problem. In Las Vegas, the city manager, not the council, directs staff.

Sullivan said McDonald told them "he was caught in the middle, and he wanted this done."

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