Columnist Jon Ralston: Smell from Walters deal continues to linger

Monday, Oct. 8, 2001 | 8:59 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

THEY SAT THERE, as if their vocal chords had been removed along with their backbones, meekly and mutely bowing to one of their co-owners.

Acting as if they owed their constituents no explanation, Mayor Oscar Goodman and the councilmen voted last week to award a golf course contract to heavy campaign contributor Billy Walters, despite an overwhelming recommendation from an independent committee that a competitor had submitted a more thorough and cheaper proposal. The only council member who spoke up, Larry Brown, did so to explain his -- and thus the council's reasoning: We know Walters.

The competition, Dallas-based Evergreen, naively didn't realize that it was wasting money and staff with its comprehensive bid because the council wasn't just dumb, it was deaf to any voice but Walters'.

One thing the terror attacks taught us is that outrage is not dead in America. But here in Las Vegas, the City Council reinforced that lesson last week with the kind of governmental terrorism that doesn't cause literal carnage but leaves a trail of broken dreams, shattered staffers and reinforced cynicism in its wake.

Like the acrid air that still floats over New York, that smell on Stewart Avenue is of a putrescence that won't dissipate. And the malodorous stink of an inside job was perfectly encapsulated by a spouting-off Mayor Oscar Goodman, who defended the vote a day later with what should be the new motto for City Hall: "If you know somebody and have done business with them in the past, they get the best of it."

So, Goodman tells us, echoing Brown, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Well, now we know -- as if we didn't from the same folks who gave us the Good Old Boys Inc. land deal a decade ago and, more recently, developers with investment partners in key staff jobs and the unusual courtesy afforded car magnate Joe Scala.

The evidence that this was based purely on familiarity breeding a juice job is plentiful. A nine-member committee didn't just recommend Evergreen; it did so unanimously. And backup documentation shows why:

Evergreen submitted 45 pages of sample cost and management reports. Walters: "No reports submitted."

Evergreen agreed to reduce its management fees "if performance goals are not met." Walters: "Fixed management fee regardless of costs are not controlled." (In fact, the evaluation shows Walters' management fee is 67 percent higher over 10 years.)

Evergreen agreed to zero-base budgeting and submitting its budget to the city. Walters: "No specified; could not provide answer to resolve dispute."

Evergreen was deemed to be "more responsive to city requirements" in details, cost savings and actually fully responding to the Request For Proposal. Walters: His proposal "provided little detail with no firm action plans."

Get the picture? Oh, one more thing: Evergreen is the fifth largest golf course operator in the country and oversees 39 public courses, 15 for government. Walters: Five courses.

Based on those facts, why shouldn't anyone think Walters was confident that he had this locked and didn't work too hard on the proposal (although he did lobby the council)? No wonder Brown had to keep putting off the vote for weeks -- and he still couldn't find anything at the meeting to justify his decision other than "the local flavor."

At the meeting, when given a chance to question Walters, who perfunctorily stressed his local successes (and no one is questioning his abilities or spectacular courses), Goodman and Co. said nothing. When asked by Brown if his colleagues had any comments to make before his motion, they said nothing. And by saying nothing, they said everything: The city is closed for business except to its friends.

I'd like to know what His Honor and the council would say to Evergreen, which spent money and time putting together a proposal for a project, according to Brown and Goodman, it had no chance to win. Why would the city even allow an out-of-state company to bid if it was going to go with its moneyed friend, no matter how much better the Evergreen proposal was?

And how can this not be seen as a blaring message to outsiders to stay out because the city's bidding process is a sham and the council is beholden to campaign contributors and political influences?

But perhaps I'm wrong. And the city folks can show me very easily. It's simple:

If the council really thinks that staff recommendation was so biased, as Brown ludicrously called it, then those employees should be fired. But if the truth is that it is the council that was so biased, since we can't fire them quite yet, they should at least acknowledge their transgressions and fire Walters.

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