Judge: Tuscany dispute will move to Carson City court

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 | 9:10 a.m.

A civil court dispute between two majority owners of a Henderson redevelopment project will be argued in Carson City, Clark County District Court Judge Ron Parraguirre ruled Monday.

The dispute arose between Tom Gonzales and Rolland Weddell, partners in Commerce Associates, which was formed in order to build Tuscany, a proposed 525-acre master-planned community of 1,900 homes and a golf course.

Gonzales, a California software developer, claims Weddell embezzled more than $10 million from funds for the Tuscany project, planned for eastern Henderson.

Weddell has requested that the case be dismissed and settled through arbitration according to the company's operating agreement.

Parraguirre did not address those issues Monday.

Because Commerce Associates is headquartered in Carson City, the company's operating agreement was signed there and both partners own homes in the Carson City area, Parraguirre said, he granted Weddell's request for a change of venue.

In Carson City, the allegations of embezzlement by Gonzales could be combined with another suit Gonzales filed there in March accusing Weddell of coming up short on promises of a partnership in a Carson City hangar.

Gonzales and Weddell formed Commerce Associates in 1999.

They worked as equal partners with Weddell as manager of the company until March 11, when Weddell resigned.

The day before his resignation, Weddell lent $2.7 million to R.P. Weddell and Sons, a company run by his son Steven, attorneys for Gonzales alleged Monday.

Weddell argued that the operating agreement gave him the authority to make that loan and others. The loans were necessary to cover costs for equipment and construction materials. They will be repaid according to the promissory notes, Weddell said.

Weddell also spent $2.1 million of Commerce Associates' funding on construction at the Carson City hangar, Gonzales alleged Monday. But the hangar remains under the sole ownership of Weddell, despite an agreement to share ownership, Gonzales has alleged.

In a separate hearing Monday related to the Tuscany project, a civil complaint filed in Clark County District Court by Henderson resident Tom Hantges was rescheduled for Sept. 16. In that lawsuit, Hantges alleged that Henderson city officials broke state redevelopment laws in April when they approved Commerce Associates for up to $40 million in city aid.

The city built its justification for the aid around the presence on the site of an abandoned gravel pit. State redevelopment law qualifies abandoned mines as "blighted" areas eligible for redevelopment funds.

But city and county records show that at the time the city first considered the Tuscany project as part of a redevelopment area, roughly 96 percent of the shallow gravel pit had been graded and recontoured, replaced by pads for about 850 homes and the beginnings of a golf course.