Residents say McDonald scuttled promised park

Erin Neff

Monday, Oct. 2, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

City Councilman Michael McDonald rose to political power in Las Vegas by standing up for senior citizens and building parks.

But representatives of a quiet neighborhood near Oakey Boulevard and Torrey Pines Drive are wondering how a park McDonald once made a priority for them is now merely somewhere on the drawing board while ground has already been broken for a surprising new project.

Susan Savala and four of her neighbors recently discussed how a park McDonald promised them disappeared from a priority list only to re-emerge as three lighted soccer fields on the Community College of Southern Nevada campus.

"He came out here to a neighborhood meeting and asked us if we wanted a park," Dottie Silver said. "Now he won't return any calls, and our park has vanished."

In the early 1990s the neighborhood fought a detention basin that was built in the area. As a compromise, residents were told by city planners that 10 acres behind the detention basin would be reserved for a park.

When McDonald first visited the area after his ward inherited the neighborhood in a redistricting, he asked residents if they would like a park at Oakey and Redwood Street, Savala said.

On July 12, 1999, their park was on a priority list set for council adoption. But during that meeting McDonald asked to "trail the item" to the afternoon session because he needed to speak with someone he was working with on a park project.

The item was never heard in the afternoon and when it re-emerged July 26, the Redwood and Oakey park was off the priority list, and Savala and her neighbors couldn't get anyone from McDonald's office to tell them why.

Neither McDonald nor his ward liaisons Rick Henry and Doug Rankin returned calls concerning this matter. The city's communication office referred calls to Asssistant City Manager Doug Selby who said the parks priority list went through several revisions.

"Lists were going around the council, and since there wasn't enough money for all of them, they were debating which ones should go," Selby said.

Although parks are one of the city's top priorities, the manager's office largely leaves decisions about individual projects up to the individual council members. And, the council members -- not the manager -- are the ones who can set and change the parks priority list.

Thus, two other projects in McDonald's ward have already begun the design or construction phase. One is a 40-acre lighted football field complex at Buffalo Drive and Oakey Boulevard.

But the one that angers June Deley is a 4-acre park at Torrey Pines Drive and Oakey Boulevard, just a few blocks from her home.

"We've never heard a thing," Deley said of the $700,000 park the city is constructing jointly with the community college and Opportunity Village.

"It came out of nowhere," Savala added. "We were never notified, and it seems he's just doing it to ingratiate himself to the movers and shakers at the college and Opportunity Village."

The park, which had a groundbreaking ceremony this summer, is being featured as a soccer complex for community college women that the public also can use.

"One of the main thrusts behind this project was that we needed a home for women's soccer, which started this year," said Mike Meyer, CCSN's associate vice president for community and development.

Meyer, who serves as the college's athletic director, said part of the reason the soccer park and adjacent playground have moved through the system so quickly is due to McDonald's support and the college's ability to "take a lot of the red tape out of the process."

"It's exciting that we were able to get it moving so quick," said Meyer, who has worked for the college for 18 months.

The facility, which is expected to be finished by next summer, could also be used to spark University Regents to name men's soccer the next community college sport, Meyer said.

During recent council meetings, McDonald has frequently referred to his work with Meyer on the park project, and has mentioned him as one of the "pillars of the community." They both serve as board members of Youth Charities of Southern Nevada.

McDonald claims he was representing that charity during a disputed visit to Las Vegas Sportspark in May.

Metro Police are investigating whether McDonald actually attempted to broker the sale of Las Vegas Sportspark to the city or a third party to help free his boss, Larry Scheffler, of a bad financial investment.

McDonald works for Scheffler at Las Vegas Color Graphics and toured the Sportspark with strip club owner Rick Rizzolo and Rizzolo's attorney in May. Don Schlesinger, a minority partner in the Sportspark, said he was under the impression Rizzolo was looking to buy the park.

McDonald said Rizzolo and the others were simply touring the park to scout a location for a softball tournament to benefit Youth Charities.

Meyer and other charity officials have been interviewed by police in connection to the Sportspark case, which is also the subject of a city ethics hearing this Thursday.

McDonald also is reportedly under investigation by the FBI and faces a separate Metro Police probe about whether he or his office played a role in the opening of a controversial church.

The various investigations come as no surprise to Savala, who like McDonald is a former police officer.

"He's breaking promises and helping the important people.

"He has totally kept us out of the process, and there's nobody you can go to," Savala said.