Columnist Jon Ralston: Mack’s dubious disclosures

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 4:23 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 CONVENTIONAL WISDOM around City Hall these days is that if there are no more revelations to come, Councilman Michael Mack will recover from his recent travails. But there is more to come. Much more.

And the question now is whether his supporters, most importantly an unwavering Mayor Oscar Goodman, will continue to prop him up or push him out the door. Mack says he intends to disclose more about his finances this week -- including details of about seven figures in loans. But he is doing so partly because of the threat of subpoenas in a lawsuit that could reveal the information anyhow and because he has a date with Judge Sally Loehrer this week on an attempt to remove him from office.

The question is whether his coming clean will mitigate mounting evidence of an unusually close relationship with Joe Scala, the car dealer whose interests he appeared to be representing as a councilman in a recent zoning dispute with a competitor of Scala's, and from whose business Mack says he took a nearly $60,000 loan. That evidence includes the fact that Scala personally was helping Mack pay off $1.1 million in bank loans and the car magnate's donation of at least one vehicle to Mack's campaign -- a contribution the councilman failed to disclose as required by law.

And there's more -- the most disturbing question is whether the councilman got into financial trouble, then used his elected position to try to bail himself out. Mack denied a couple of weeks ago that he had solicited anyone else besides Scala with business before the city to invest or buy his sinking pawn shop. But last week he acknowledged asking "a lot of people," including Goodman (interesting but not a big deal), developer/gambler Billy Walters and Coast Resorts' Michael Gaughan (Mack's negotiations with these city supplicants are a problem).

This new information -- and Mack's belated acknowledgment of it and his seeming disingenuosness when I first questioned him -- raises serious questions. "I'm not hiding anything," he insisted last week. "I'm going to disclose it all."

Disclosure may help. Explaining is a different story. For instance:

* Mack has said that Scala, who owns the Courtesy car franchises, last year gave him a $60,000 loan through his People's Real Estate Investment LLC as a bridge to a possible investment in the councilman's pawn shop. But it was more than that. Sources report that Mack has two commercial loans with Nevada First Bank, like the People's Real Estate loan disclosed on his city financial form. Mack was having trouble paying those off and Scala wrote at least one personal check (for $21,000) to the bank to help Mack make at least three payments on the bank loans.

Mack said he believes the money Scala used to pay off the loans and the People's Real Estate loan are one and the same but acknowledged he was confused. "I don't have the facts together, to be honest," he said. "I'm not clear on exactly how the checks were distributed." Scala could not be reached.

But if Scala did this personally, not through his business, the disclosure isn't quite right. And doesn't that speak to an even closer relationship?

Won't it appear unseemly that a businessman is paying a bank to reduce a councilman's debt?

* After previously denying that Scala had given him a car, Mack acknowledged last week that the Courtesy boss gave "some trucks" to his campaign, which began last year and culminated in his election in April. When I asked where those were disclosed on his campaign form -- there are no vehicles listed -- Mack referred me to his campaign treasurer, Mike Kern.

Kern said that he was informed last week of a Scala vehicle or vehicles being donated and that he plans to amend Mack's campaign report once he finds out details from Courtesy. Amazing how Mack's memory was jogged months after a campaign ended -- could it have been the lawsuit?

Kern, a veteran of many campaigns, said he had followed standard procedures with the councilman months ago when the disclosure deadline came and went down a checklist he routinely prepares, which includes in-kind donations:

"For whatever reason, I was not told (about the car or cars) when I prepared the report." For whatever reason.

* Mack said he could not remember exactly when he approached Gaughan and Walters, but said he would provide documents to pinpoint the dates. (I'm waiting.) Walters said he did not recall the conversation with Mack, but said "12 to 18 months ago, (Mack) talked to 20 or 30 people in town" about investing in the pawn shop. Walters said he never seriously considered the proposition. Gaughan did not return a phone call.

The points here are obvious: What is Mack doing soliciting from people who rely on his vote? Why wouldn't he at least disclose that fact? Who else is out there (those 20 or 30 people) that he might have asked for a financial bailout?

If Mack is a failed businessman who got stressed when the media sharks bit, that's no egregious transgression and his suffering may be near an end. But if he abused his council post to try to save that business, making himself indebted to those who need his vote, and was less than forthright until he was forced to be, his problems have only just begun.