City won’t pursue ethics hearing against Arberry

Jace Radke

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 10:36 a.m.

State Assemblyman Morse Arberry emerged from Thursday's city of Las Vegas Ethics Review Board meeting unscathed, but he will still face questions on the state level.

The city board decided that allegations that Arberry helped push through a project that granted money to a friend's project and could benefit his fiancee's mortgage company were matters to be considered by the state Ethics Commission, out of the city's jurisdiction.

Arberry, a Las Vegas Democrat who is running for re-election in November, also serves as deputy director of Las Vegas' Neighborhood Services department, and that may have prompted North Las Vegas resident John Hortas to bring the complaint to the city's ethics board.

"I'm happy it was done, and I'd like to just let it shut down and die," Arberry said after the meeting.

Richard Wright, Arberry's attorney, said he felt there were three accusations in the complaint, with only the issue of Arberry failing to file financial disclosures with the city for 1998, and omitting information from his 1999 filing, falling under the board's jurisdiction.

Arberry explained that he wasn't aware of the financial disclosure requirement when he took the neighborhood services job, saying, "Once I got notice of it I took care of it right away."

The city clerks office received an amended version of Arberry's 1999 report and a 1998 report Thursday morning, hours before the board meeting.

The second allegation against Arberry involves a 1999 appropriations bill that Arberry voted for first in his committee and then in the full Assembly. The measure granted $2.8 million to a West Las Vegas housing project called Whispering Timbers.

The grant went from the state to the city before going to Community Development Programs Center of Nevada, the company that is developing Whispering Pines and is run by Arberry's friend, Frank Hawkins.

At the time of the vote, Arberry also served as chief executive officer of a mortgage company that serves as a second lender to the project. Arberry resigned from that position days after the Sun detailed the 1999 vote, but his fiancee, Virgie Vincent, remains president of the mortgage company.

The third allegation relates to whether Arberry actually lives in the district he represents, District 7. He and Vincent are listed as co-tenants of a $1 million home on Canyon Springs Drive, but Arberry also has a home on Virginia City Avenue in District 7.

"Why should I have a man running my Assembly district when I'm not sure where he lives," Hortas said.

Hortas has also filed a complaint with the state ethics panel.

The Rev. Chester Richardson, another complainant against Arberry, called the board a joke, and later was removed from the meeting by a city marshal after telling board member Ida Gaines she would burn in hell.