Columnist Jon Ralston: City Council shanks deal on golf course

Friday, Oct. 12, 2001 | 4:25 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 by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

WHEN THE CITY of Las Vegas requested bids for a northwest golf course on May 25, Billy Walters says he wasn't interested. There was no money in a small, no-frills course, he says he believed. "There was no shot to an upside," Walters recalled thinking. "We just passed."

But in the month before the proposals were due, the councilman for the area, Larry Brown, kept asking Walters questions about his golf operation and the developer reiterated that he wasn't interested.

Then, 48 hours before a June 28 deadline, Brown persuaded him, Walters says. "I think he (Brown) got the feeling that there weren't going to be any responses so he asked me, basically as a friend of the city, to respond to the (proposal)."

And so he did, throwing together a bid within a couple of days -- shuffling papers into a three-ring binder and making general statements about what his company could do. Four months later, without any substantive discussion at a council meeting, Brown recommended Walters get the contract, and his colleagues meekly and mutely rubber-stamped the decision.

That unity contrasted with a unanimous recommendation from a nine-member staff committee -- some of whom actually were known to be Walters sympathizers -- to award the contract to Dallas-based Evergreen, which had spent weeks on a much slicker and thicker proposal.

But Evergreen didn't have any political juice, didn't hire any of the local insiders who can have their way with government bodies and they were left holding their golf bags as the council ignored their staff, but gave no reasons why (and they still don't have any good ones).

Brown said last week that he doesn't remember asking Walters to bid just before the deadline. "That's not my recollection of the story," he said. But, he added, "I certainly said (to Walters), I hope you stay with it."

This is just another piece of a puzzle that, when they all fit together, form a picture of a process that can't possibly inspire confidence -- in the foreground a City Council suffused either by arrogance or ignorance and in the background a gambler/developer who bets heavily on incumbents and talks as good a game, golf or politics, as anyone.

You can take Brown's pushing Walters to be involved as simply being encouragement by a councilman who was worried no one would take a chance on a golf course amenity he had promised northwest residents. A benign entreaty to someone who had done a fine job for the city at Desert Pines, perhaps?

The problem, though, is twofold. First this is a story where every billow of smoke seems to lead to a different fire, creating a conflagration because the Silly Septet has stoked it by its haughty approval of Walters.

Second, Walters is no usual "friend of the city." He opposed Brown in favor of incumbent Matthew Callister in 1997 and did not contribute to Brown's walkaway this year. Mayor Oscar Goodman represented Walters in the 1980s, but Walters did not help the mayor's first campaign.

But Walters has flooded the political system with money during the last few cycles -- and the victim's costume is ill-fitting on a man who has carefully cultivated government leaders for a decade. Walters was one of the largest contributors ($10,000 each through different corporations) to the three councilmen with contested races this year.

Those three overrode a staff report that was compelling in its conclusion, but it is likely no one but Brown even took the time to read it. (Walters is preparing an analysis to rebut the staff conclusion -- but it's a little late to give this council the cover it needs. The council clearly didn't listen to staff anyhow; but when Walters called each of them when he found out the recommendation against him, oh my, did they listen.)

The council's attitude (or spin) now is: Don't worry, if there's a problem, we'll fix it in the negotiations on the contract with Walters. I'm sure that makes the Evergreen folks feel better.

Walters knew he had the votes when he walked into that meeting -- maybe when he submitted his slapdash proposal upon Brown's request. But this story is not mainly about Walters. That would be like blaming Steve Wynn for getting the Gang of 63 to genuflect and give him an art tax break. Juice is juice.

But the only way for juice to prosper is for good men (or Goodman) to do nothing. In this case, with their see-no-juice, speak-no-juice, hear-no-juice attitude, the City Council did nothing.