Mack says he won’t seek re-election next year

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack said this morning he will not seek re-election next year, avoiding what likely would have been a vicious negative campaign.

The councilman has gone through ethical and legal battles since being appointed to the council five years ago. Mack, however, said those issues had nothing to do with his decision.

"I want to spend more time with my family, most importantly my two little boys," Mack said. "I'm missing out on so much and I don't want to."

Mack, 41, is divorced and has shared custody of his two sons, who are 6 and 8 years old.

He said the prospect of a difficult campaign was not a factor in his decision.

"The ethics charges I was cleared of, and I would have worked my tail off," Mack said.

City Council members Larry Brown and Janet Moncrief said Mack told them on Tuesday that he would not run for re-election.

"I wish him well. He let me know his children are at an age he wants to spend more time with them," Moncrief said.

Brown said Mack "wants and needs more time with the kids."

Brown said he was surprised Mack would not try to continue serving on the council, because he said he knows Mack enjoys it.

"But then I'm not surprised. He's been through some tough times," Brown said.

During his time on the council Mack has been brought before ethics commissions and into court, filed for bankruptcy, taken time off because of stress, and seen his name come up in the investigation into the alleged bribing of former Clark County commissioners by a former strip club owner.

Dan Hart, who ran Mack's 2001 campaign, said he wasn't surprised Mack decided against running for re-election.

"It would not be a pleasant campaign," Hart said. "He's had his name dragged through the mud and it would be again."

Tom Letizia, a longtime ad executive who helped elect Mayor Oscar Goodman, a key Mack supporter, said he was surprised by the news. He said he thought Mack could have raised $1 million for his re-election and won, despite the ethical problems dogging him.

Letizia said he was impressed with Mack, who he said was renewed after he went to Arizona to seek medical help in the wake of his ethical problems.

"When he came back from that I think he was a stronger man," Letizia said. "Everybody's made mistakes. I think people have poor judgment from time to time and Michael really improved from it."

Yet Democratic consultant Billy Vassiliadis said he expected a strong challenger to emerge soon against Mack. The ethical charges against the councilman would have been too much to overcome, Vassiliadis said.

"It sounds like he realized it was going to be a very harsh campaign and frankly I don't think he could have survived it," he said.

There already was buzz that this was a "winnable race," Vassiliadis said, and names should start to surface by the end of the year.

"It's a wide open seat, and I think you'll end up hearing a lot of interest," he said.

Mack was a city planning commissioner and owner of pawn, souvenir and jewelry stores when he was appointed to represent the newly created council Ward 6 in November 1999.

Mack then won his first election in April 2001, which was a turbulent year for the councilman.

During 2001, Mack voted to postpone and ultimately to deny an application for a car dealership in northwest Las Vegas while failing to disclose he owed $60,000 to a competing car dealer. The city's ethics board recommended Mack be prosecuted in Las Vegas Municipal Court for those votes. A judge later acquitted Mack of four criminal charges.

Also that year, Mack filed for bankruptcy, he owed more than $3 million to creditors, and took about a month off because of stress.

In May 2003, it became public that a videotape of Mack allegedly receiving a lap dance at Cheetahs was among the items seized by the FBI during the raid of the strip club, which was part of the investigation into strip-club owner Michael Galardi's alleged payoffs to county elected officials. Mack was not accused of doing anything illegal in that case.

Then in November 2003, the state Ethics Commission determined that Mack did not violate ethics laws when he abstained from voting on a council agenda item involving one of Mayor Oscar Goodman's sons. However, the commission said Mack should have been more specific in disclosing the reasons he abstained.

And earlier this year, Mack promoted his brother's SuperPawn business by sending e-mails to City Hall employees only weeks after he violated city policy by using his city computer to send e-mails pushing a charity event.

Mack now owns his own consulting business, which does jewelry sales and media advertising, he said. He has consulted with the Treasures strip club which had its liquor license revoked by the city council. Mack did not vote on the issues surrounding Treasures.

Mack said his most important achievements as a councilman include an interlocal agreement with Clark County the he developed with Brown and County Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield. That agreement essentially made zoning changes in the northwest more difficult because it required those changes go before both the city and county elected boards, he said.

Mack said he was also proud of securing funding for the $26 million Centennial Hills Multigenerational center, which will be at Buffalo Road and Elkhorn Road.

Mack's decision not to run again is the beginning of what could be a big election year for the council. There's an effort to recall Moncrief. As well, Steve Wolfson, who won the seat in a special election in June, will be up for re-election as will Brown.