State of the City tapes might join ethics complaint

Sito Negron

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 | 11:20 a.m.

Robert Rose said Tuesday he wants to amend his ethics complaint against Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to include the fact that the mayor gave a city-owned copy of his State of the City speech to representatives of iPolitix, a company in which Goodman's son and Councilman Michael Mack have partial ownership.

Rose previously filed a complaint against Goodman for handing out invitations to a January promotional party for iPolitix that took place in Washington, D.C., in the same hotel where Goodman was attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting.

The invitations carried Goodman's mayoral title, and Goodman said he greeted attendees, told them to check out the iPolitix product -- a media analysis tool -- and then stood back.

Stacy Jennings, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics, said once a person submits a complaint, they no longer are a legal party to it, and technically cannot amend a complaint. However, she said, "that doesn't mean if he provides me information I won't look at it or consider it."

Jennings said that "state regulations do provide that if I find other relevant issues that can help with the complaint or are related to the complaint, I can expand the investigation."

In making his complaint, Rose quoted Nevada rules that do not allow public officials or their family members to profit from their office. In seeking to amend the complaint Tuesday, he said he relied on a portion of the ethics law that -- with some exemptions -- forbids the use of government-owned property.

"He went into the closet, got out tapes, and they used it as a promotion on his son's venture," Rose said. "I guess he's never read any of those statutes and I think he should."

Goodman said that he gave the tapes -- which he considers public record and available to anyone -- to iPolitix with the understanding that the company would create a media kit that would be of value to his office.

Because of the number of public appearances requested of him, Goodman said, the kit would allow people and organizations to "have an expectation of what I'll say."

He said Tuesday that he had not yet received the kit.

The city tapes televised appearances on its cable channel, KCLV, and purchases video from archiving agencies when city officials are on television, said city Communications Director David Riggleman.

He said the city spends about $8,500 a year on such tapes. Of that, about $5,000 goes toward buying tapes of the mayor's appearances, Riggleman said.

Goodman, who said Tuesday he has not responded yet to the state's ethics inquiry, said he keeps a number of tapes in his office.

Craig Walton, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas ethics professor, said it's difficult to tell whether Goodman broke the prohibition against using government material for personal gain. The statute has some provisions under which giving out government-owned material is acceptable -- for example, if the cost is nominal, or if the material is available to members of the general public.

Also, Goodman said he thought the city would receive a benefit, the media kit, in return for use of the tape he loaned iPolitix.

Walton said Goodman is "a good spokesman, a colorful figure, so if he were on a tape and you and I called a meeting of people to persuade them to do something good for Las Vegas and we could show a clip of the mayor articulating, in a spirited manner as he always does, it might be very beneficial."

Walton went a step further. Speaking of the mayor's hoard of taped televised appearances, Walton said: "Why not go international on this, and put them on the city website? Let's video-stream these things!"