Columnist Jon Ralston: Deft Broadbent was relentless

Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 | 4:34 a.m.

Seventeen years ago, in another journalistic life, I was covering Clark County government. At the time, there were problems at McCarran International Airport and the director was under siege. I received a tip that the commissioners were about to bring in some former board member named Bob Broadbent, a guy I had barely heard of, to the top job at the airport.

Somehow I secured Broadbent's number in Washington, where he was working in the Interior Department. When he picked up the phone, I asked him if the rumor was true, that he was coming back to head up McCarran. There was a pause -- and today I can imagine that wry Broadbent grin on the other end -- and his words come back to me as clearly as when he uttered them in 1986:

"First you tell me what you think you know and then we'll talk," Broadbent said. So I did. He realized I had the story and he reluctantly confirmed it.

That was the essential Bob Broadbent, who passed away last weekend after a storied career. He never gave away what he didn't have to give away, the "aw shucks" demeanor of the Boulder City pharmacist masking one of the more canny and skillful players ever to appear on the state's political stage. Said one longtime Nevada political observer: "He was one of the five or 10 most important people in the history of Clark County."

Broadbent was quiet and unassuming, but he was Nevada's political equivalent of E.F. Hutton. When he spoke at the bargaining table, in political backrooms, in many venues, people listened. Whether you loved him or feared him, if Broadbent was involved in an issue, people rarely bet against him. As Woodbury put it, "He was strong and he certainly could do whatever it took to get his way."

His mastery of technical details and politics, his negotiating talents and his interlocking relationships helped create a legacy that will resonate for a long, long time. He was Bob the Builder long before the children's character came into being -- the McCarran expansion, the convention authority additions and, of course, the monorail.

That's the obvious stuff; there is so much more.

As Bruce Woodbury, the friend who took his place on the County Commission 22 years ago pointed out this week, Broadbent also persuaded the Legislature a quarter-century ago to create the government behemoth that is Clark County.

"Where there is a will there is a way, and those in office have to provide the will and Bob provided the way by restructuring the local government," Woodbury recalled. "I think you would have to look long and hard across the country to find (a) county government strong and able to accomplish things both as a municipal government and as a county-wide regional government that we have here in Clark County."

That indomitability also was recalled last week by Randy Walker, the friend who succeeded him at the airport. "The thing that I think was so amazing was nothing would deter Bob from what he wanted to get accomplished," Walker said. " 'It can't be done' was not a phrase that you used with Bob. I remember wanting to do something at one point in time, sitting down going through all the avenues, I think the attorney said, 'Well you cannot do it. It is against the law.' Bob then said, 'OK we would just go and get the law changed.' "

Indeed, when the monorail project ran into financing trouble, Broadbent managed to get state lawmakers to sanction the private entity harnessing the state's borrowing power to issue bonds. No one thought it could be done. But Broadbent would never countenance anyone just saying no.

And that included some of the most powerful people in this community. The man who spoke out against the mob as a commissioner in the late 1970s took on the Strip power brokers on behalf of the monorail two decades later. "You had a very long list of resort hotel owners who were very skeptical and in fact outright in opposition to the monorail," Woodbury remembered.

Broadbent used to shake his head about implications that he, Woodbury and Regional Transportation Commission chief Jake Snow were part of some Mormon Mafia trying to enhance their power base and that he was in it just for the money. But he remained undaunted and it is fitting that the monorail will bear his name.

Much of what Broadbent accomplished, though, will not be visible to the naked eye. He chaired the school district's bond oversight committee. He helped countless people find jobs. He lobbied state lawmakers on behalf of his county masters. He used his federal connections to better the valley.

But he never wanted the credit or the coverage. Broadbent would never give up much -- he was a terrible source of new information but a source of great insight if you asked his opinion. His affinity for the background probably explains why he didn't run for elective office after returning to Nevada. He would have made a great governor, a great U.S. senator.

In one of the first columns I ever wrote 14 years ago, I penned a piece about how Broadbent had become immensely influential so soon after returning to McCarran from Capitol Hill. The headline said: "Broadbent has become the eighth county commissioner."

He surely hated that headline, knowing how fragile are the egos of politicians, just as surely he would be embarrassed now by all the encomia tossed his way during the last week and at his funeral Saturday.

You can almost imagine him looking down and grinning that Broadbent grin, shaking his head and turning away to fade into the background for the last time.