Feds investigate county’s approval of drugstore

Monday, Aug. 16, 2004 | 10:59 a.m.

Federal investigators are reviewing land records from a controversial approval of a drugstore and convenience store granted almost three years ago by the Clark County Commission.

County officials confirmed that the FBI, which is prosecuting three former and one sitting commissioner as part of a larger investigation into alleged influence peddling by a Las Vegas strip club owner, requested the records relating to the bitterly contested approval of the drugstore.

For months, as the investigation into the relationship between strip club owner Michael Galardi and the county commissioners continued, there have been unconfirmed reports that the federal investigators were interested in land-use issues outside of the adult entertainment industry.

Former Commissioner Erin Kenny, who was an ally of Galardi and the CVS drugstore developers, is reportedly cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case. Former Commissioners Dario Herrera and Lance Malone have been indicted. Sitting Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey also was indicted.

Trials are not expected until next year.

County Manager Thom Reilly and Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes said the most recent request for information, which dates back to early July, appears to be the first move in that direction. The federal request, however, was specific to that single parcel, they said.

Holmes said the county provided the FBI with "anything related to that parcel -- ownership records, zoning records, transcripts from different hearings."

Holmes said he is not aware of anything illegal or unethical occurring during the approval process for the drugstore and convenience store, although tough policy questions were debated during the public process.

Among the issues were the location of the store and the amount of landscaping that should be required as a buffer to neighboring homes.

The route for the approval of the drugstore was circuitous, even by the usual standards for the county's land-use rules. The approval for the change to the master plan and to the zoning needed for the pharmacy and convenience store came the same day, Nov. 7, 2001.

The approval came despite the opposition of Commissioner Chip Maxfield, who represents the area, and Commissioner Bruce Woodbury. The commissioners who voted for the change were Kenny, Herrera, Kincaid-Chauncey and Myrna Williams.

In May of the same year, the county approved the master-plan change that would have made it easier to grant the zoning, but Clark County counsel Rob Warhola advised the board to bring the change back through the county's process because the neighbors were not properly notified that the issue was coming before the County Commission.

Chris Kaempfer, a Las Vegas land-use attorney, said he worked on the initial master plan change that allowed the project to go forward, but he believed that the developer was seeking approval for an office building.

Kaempfer said he does not believe the site was appropriate for a drugstore and convenience store.

"I was hired to do one thing," he said. "I was hired to get a single story office building on that site. I did not and I would not represent a freestanding drugstore at that location."

Kaempfer, who said he has not been contacted by federal or local authorities on the issue, said the effort to locate the drugstore at the site was championed by land-use consultant Greg Borgel.

Borgel, who has represented the CVS Corp. in other efforts to establish the stores in Las Vegas, said he also has not been contacted by authorities.

Throughout the process, Kenny, who did not represent the area, was an ally of the developer. On the same day that the commission approved the CVS store over the objections of many nearby residents, the commission denied a similar convenience store and drugstore in Southern Highlands, which had the support of county planning staff and hundreds of Southern Highlands residents.

Reilly said the FBI request for records pertaining to the CVS approval, which included both a zone change and a change of the master plan for Spring Valley, came to the county early in July.

The county submitted the information in its files on the approval and related master-plan changes, and since then hasn't had any follow-up questions, Reilly said.

He said the FBI never indicated how, or if, the request was related to the investigation into the Galardi strip clubs or adult entertainment industry.

"We can't find the link with the adult industry," Reilly said. "They just asked for the information. They've never followed up with a question."

Carolyn Edwards, a Spring Valley resident, remembers vividly the controversial decision that allowed the drugstore. Because of the county's decision, the CVS pharmacy looms over her back wall in what otherwise would look like a upscale west-valley neighborhood.

She said federal prosecutors haven't talked to her. If they had, Edwards said, she does not have any proof of blatant wrongdoing.

"I have a suspicion that money changed hands, but I have no evidence, no proof," she said.

Edwards said she knows the drugstore is not going to go away, regardless of the results of the investigation.

"I'm not going to get my backyard back," she said. "What I hope to get is the satisfaction of knowing that what I thought was done improperly and with a hidden agenda, well, I was right."

FBI officials said the information that they requested from Clark County is part of the ongoing investigation into political corruption tied to the indictments of current and former politicians who are alleged to have traded influence for money and gifts from a strip club owner.

Special Agent Todd Palmer said the county was very helpful getting the information to investigating agents.

"It was all information that is out there and part of the public record," Palmer said of the records that the FBI acquired.

Palmer would not comment further except to say that the record acquisition is part of the ongoing political corruption investigation.