Columnist Jeff German: Street of broken promises

Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

Lesson No. 2 in Las Vegas Politics 101: An agreement made by previous members of a public body doesn't have to be honored if ignoring that agreement benefits casinos.

The deeper you dig into the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority bailout of the privately run Fremont Street Experience, the more it smells.

Last week's LVCVA board vote preceded a string of back-room deals and orchestrated public presentations aimed at greasing the skids for the public bailout of the downtown pedestrian mall.

Now, it seems, broken promises to the public can be added to that list.

LVCVA board members, you'll recall, voted to hand over the $7 million to city officials last week quicker than you can lose playing Megabucks. The city intends to pump the cash into the outdated light show above the four-block Fremont Street Experience with the hope that it will lure more tourists to downtown casinos.

The 11-0 vote, it turns out, was taken without any discussion of the history of the LVCVA's dealings with the city and the Fremont Street Experience.

Had there been a discussion, the public would have learned that the city, after receiving an $8 million LVCVA grant for the original construction of the light show in 1993, promised not to ask for more Fremont Street money.

At the time city officials were taking public heat for getting the Legislature to declare the Fremont Street Experience a "recreational venue" just to qualify for LVCVA funds, which by statute are earmarked for local park projects.

To ease concerns, then-Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, a strong advocate of the Fremont Street bailout, put the promise in writing in a three-page agreement with then-LVCVA Chairman Paul Christensen, a county commissioner who voted against the bailout.

Here's what the May 25, 1993, agreement says: "No request to (the) authority shall hereafter be made by (the) city for any sum in excess of the total $8 million herein provided for the construction, improvement and betterment of the Fremont Street Experience."

Those words are crystal clear -- no more Fremont Street handouts.

But nine years later, with a new mayor, a new city council and a new LVCVA board, and new financial troubles for downtown casinos, city officials went back to the LVCVA for more money.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, an LVCVA board member who pushed for the new $7 million cash infusion, contends he knew nothing about the 1993 agreement.

But LVCVA President Manny Cortez, who was at the helm of the LVCVA in 1993, acknowledges that he was aware of it.

Cortez said he never told Goodman and the rest of the board members about the old agreement because he didn't believe it was "relevant" to last week's vote.

In his mind, he said, the agreement expired in July 2000 after the LVCVA made the last of its eight annual $1 million payments to the city.

"Common sense tells you when you make your final payment, your agreement expires," he said.

Cortez, of course, isn't a lawyer.

But City Attorney Brad Jerbic said he also believes the old contract no longer is valid. Then again, it's in Jerbic's political interest to side with Cortez on this issue.

"They (LVCVA board members) have discharged their duties under the agreement," he said. "They owe us no obligation, and I don't believe we owe them any obligation."

Nowhere in the $8 million agreement, however, is there language that states the city's promise not to ask for more money for Fremont Street was only for the duration of the LVCVA's eight-year payment schedule.

It's one reason why Jerbic said he plans to draw up a new formal agreement for the $7 million that clearly states the city has a right to request the new grant from the LVCVA.

Even if you believe the old contract no longer is in effect, you have to wonder whether city officials broke the spirit of the 1993 deal -- and their promise to the public -- by going after more LVCVA funds.

Add the fact that there wasn't even a public discussion last week about the previous agreement, and the new deal smells even worse.