Judge set to decide Mack case

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 | 9:14 a.m.

District Judge Sally Loehrer will decide this week whether to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to remove Las Vegas Councilman Michael Mack from office for alleged malfeasance.

Mack will also learn this week when he will be brought before the Las Vegas Ethics Review Board.

The lawsuit was filed after the councilman in June led a vote to deny a Nissan car dealership along Rancho Road proposed by John Staluppi Jr.

Staluppi sued Mack after the councilman disclosed days after the vote that he had an outstanding $60,000 loan from rival car dealer Joseph Scala, who owns land inside Town Center that is the site of a proposed auto mall.

Mack asked for the application to be reconsidered so that he could abstain from the vote; the council denied the site plan a second time, nevertheless.

Staluppi alleges that Mack voted against the dealership's site plan -- after initially saying he approved of it -- because of leverage brought by Scala. Mack also faces two ethics complaints -- regarding the same allegations -- before the Las Vegas Ethics Review Board.

It remains to be seen if and when Mack will be brought forward for the ethics complaints to be heard. The Ethics Review Board missed a key 30-day deadline to hear the complaints, a delay complicated by new ethics rules approved Aug. 1 by the City Council.

A two-member panel of the ethics board decided Aug. 29 that there was enough evidence to forward the ethics complaints -- filed by Staluppi -- to a full hearing before the entire five-panel board.

It was during that meeting that Chairman Earle White Jr. was told by city attorneys of the changes to the ethics code. The board did not have a quorum to take a vote to schedule a hearing or appoint special counsel to assist the members in the case.

One of the changes increased the ethics board from five members to seven, to mesh with the current make-up of the council. The council, though, had not appointed the two new members by Aug. 29.

There were only three members of the Ethics Review Board present at the Aug. 29 meeting. Before the changes to the ethics code, three members would have been the necessary quorum to take a vote.

White scheduled a meeting for Thursday to introduce the new member who has been appointed to fill one vacant seat and to set a hearing into the Mack matter.

At Thursday's meeting, White can schedule a special meeting to hear the Mack complaints. The board usually meets on the last Thursday of every other month.

Meanwhile, in Loehrer's courtroom Tuesday, attorneys argued the technicality of a 100-year-old removal statue and whether Mack should be dismissed from the lawsuit.

Attorney Anthony Sgro, who represents Staluppi, is relying on Nevada Revised Statue 283.440, which pertains to the removal of public officers for malfeasance, or abusing their office.

No elected official has been removed under that law.

Attorney Bruce Judd, representing Mack and filling in for the councilman's regular attorney -- Richard Wright -- argued that Mack is protected from the malfeasance statute because his decision to deny Staluppi's application was "discretionary," and there was a basis for denial.