Columnist Jeff German: Kenny gives FBI an earful

Friday, July 11, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

We still don't have a clear picture of where the FBI is headed with its investigation into possible political corruption in Southern Nevada.

FBI agents may not even know. They may have uncovered more problems with our political system than they expected.

If we believe defense lawyers for some of the targets, the probe has expanded beyond the influence of topless nightclub mogul Michael Galardi to political clout wielded by wealthy developers.

And one thing is starting to come into focus. Former County Commissioner Erin Kenny, one of several politicians targeted in the investigation, is at the heart of many of the leads FBI agents are pursuing.

It has gotten to the point where defense lawyers for the other targets are becoming concerned that Kenny either already has begun providing information to FBI agents or is contemplating such a move to save her own skin.

Her attorney, Frank Cremen, refuses to say whether Kenny is talking to agents, or plans on talking.

But whatever it turns out she's doing, we can expect Kenny to remain a target of the investigation, thanks to months of court-approved wiretaps, which are said to be not very flattering to the former two-term commissioner.

The wiretaps have given agents a pretty good idea of how politics works in Southern Nevada -- how special interests dangle hefty campaign contributions, lucrative consulting contracts and even cold cash over the heads of elected officials to get them to do their bidding.

Kenny has become the poster child for a political system that allows corruption to flourish. She has come to represent everything that's wrong with the way business is conducted and why change is needed.

Recently County Commissioner Mark James gave us insight into how Kenny operated when he filed a sworn affidavit accusing his predecessor of using strong-arm tactics as a lobbyist for developer Jim Rhodes.

The day after she left office on Jan. 6, Kenny began pressuring James to vote for a controversial Rhodes housing development on the edge of Red Rock Canyon, a project current residents opposed.

She warned that it could be politically "dangerous" for James to cross developers like Rhodes.

Two months later, after James announced his opposition to the Red Rock project, Kenny telephoned James and, in the commissioner's words, "made certain pointed remarks about my political future, which may in the mildest terms be characterized as hostile."

This is how Kenny conducted herself after she left office. Imagine how she acted as a sitting commissioner, with the power of her office behind her. Imagine the earful FBI agents got on the occasions they secretly recorded her conversations.

There's no telling how the FBI investigation will end up.

But it seems to me that the deeper FBI agents dig into Kenny's activities, the clearer it will become that our way of practicing politics in Southern Nevada no longer works.