City Council seeks probe of drug facility

Judy Odierna

Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council has asked Metro Police to open a criminal investigation into the events surrounding the placement of a drug treatment facility at 800 S. Valley View Blvd., across the street from a middle school.

Councilman Michael McDonald requested the investigation after discovering that city employees who helped push the project through quit soon after Choices Group Inc. received permission to open the facility at that location. McDonald did not say which employees they were.

"Someone intentionally put this here to make me and (Mayor Oscar Goodman) look bad in front of our constituents," he said. "I was told this came from up top."

McDonald said he believed the orders came from the city manager's floor, but said it wasn't City Manager Doug Selby or any of the assistant city managers.

Choices Group -- which was originally located on Third Street -- applied to move to the Valley View office in August 2001. The center provides court-ordered counseling for drug and alcohol offenders.

The business license application was initially denied because a special use permit was needed for that area. But the same month the facility was granted a permit for an outpatient drug treatment center.

The location is near Hyde Park Middle School, a park and a residential neighborhood.

On Wednesday city officials were trying to determine where the facility could be relocated. One option was another area in McDonald's ward and the other was in Councilman Lawrence Weekly's district. Selby said they are not releasing the addresses yet.

Moving the facility could cost the city more than $1 million because the city would have to take over Choices Group's current five-year lease.

Weekly said he would oppose putting the facility in his district.

"We are serviced out," he said. "We already provide every service."

The council decided to hold off on the move and decided instead to go forward with the investigation.

"I think I was the one that said if it doesn't stink it sure smells," Goodman said. "The kind of money we're looking at to revise this is too substantial at this time. It should be further explored to find out what the matters are."