Columnist Jon Ralston: Questions still linger over Mack’s absence

Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2001 | 8:55 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

THE PRODIGAL councilman planned to return to the public eye this morning, having wasted much political capital during a July of missed meetings and inexplicable insulation.

After saying he was unable to handle the stress of his unblemished, albeit brief political career being blackened by an ethics controversy, Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack on Tuesday was both upbeat and contrite.

"I believe it was a great wake-up call for me," said Mack, appointed to the council in late 1999. "I worked hard at the appointment process, I just got off the campaign. In the first 18 months, I was a young puppy who had never seen the dark side of politics."

Where is Warren Zevon when you need him? This "poor, poor pitiful me" explanation may be deserving of some sympathy -- Mack was spoiled by his family's wealth, his social connections and his serendipitous appointment when Lynette Boggs McDonald swung her vote on the day before the decision.

But his clandestine bivouac to Arizona to see a doctor, who Mack says treated him for stress, and his sudden return to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago that was followed by his abrupt departure from City Hall the day before the mid-July meeting, was a bizarre chain of events that cried out for a better explanation than he had given. (He plans to present his doctor's opinion of acute stress today to the media to put any other rumblings to rest.)

And he is no "young puppy," either. Considering what has gone on during the last 18 months at City Hall, you'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to learn a lot of lessons about the so-called dark side of politics.

All we know is that Mack didn't disclose a loan he claims he thought was paid off to Courtesy car dealer Joe Scala when he voted against a rival, John Staluppi. When Staluppi filed a lawsuit and ethics complaints ensued, Mack appears to have wilted and skipped town to at least get treatment and also propitiously avoid any further harassment from the media jackals.

I am one of those Fourth Estaters who thinks that a public figure's private life is none of our business. Unless, that is, it is interfering with his or her public performance.

That clearly is the case here. Mack missed those meetings, including one after he returned and declared himself fit for duty. And he has been unable to articulate what is wrong ("I was in La-La land," he risibly told reporters a week ago, by which he could have meant anything from Los Angeles to Lost In Arizona.)

And his deflection of calls from the media to city mouthpieces and a friend, Terry Murphy, is the kind of behavior that only arouses more suspicion in a city where access to the mayor should not be easier than access to a councilman.

Mack, obviously irked that much has been made of his successive council absences, asked rhetorically, "How many public officials do you know who have missed meetings?"

The oblique reference to who-knows-who may be well-taken -- everyone remembers how famously erstwhile Mayor Jan Jones missed votes and that some Clark County commissioners were infamous for their travels. But it is rare for a councilman or a commissioner to miss two meetings in a row.

Mack clearly had been looking for investors in his pawn business, but insists Scala is the only one he solicited who also comes before the city.

The councilman also claims that he is trying to get permission from telemarketer Denny Mason and others to release the amounts of his other outstanding loans.

Even if Mack is a poor businessman and easily stressed-out, that surely is no grounds for disqualification from the City Council. But if anything else is discovered during the lawsuit or by the ravenous press corps -- other questionable solicitations, other conflicts -- Mack will be political carrion.

And other surprises clearly would affect his patron, Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has been a mensch for the councilman -- standing up for him both publicly and privately, dispelling rumors and insisting that Mack is back to stay.

"I'm not concerned," Mack said Tuesday. "I'm disclosing everything. I'm not concerned that someone will find something that I did unethically."

Mack insisted that the last month has provided "a healthy education for me ... I truly took this pretty personal. I let my constituents down and my colleagues." He added that with the lessons he has learned, "I think I'll be even more effective."

Hard to argue with that. It would be almost impossible for him to be less effective than he has been during the last month.