Source: Kenny given $200,000 in land deal

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

Former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny received $200,000 to help pass a controversial land deal involving a drugstore and convenience store three years ago, a source close to an ongoing federal political corruption investigation said.

The source also confirmed that Don Davidson, vice president of Triple Five Development, was involved in passing the money to Kenny to secure her help in changing zoning requirements to allow for the CVS drugstore to be built.

Kenny had been keeping the funds in an offshore account, but they have since been returned to the United States as she continues to cooperate with investigators in the political corruption probe, the source said.

The probe is focusing on developers and their alleged efforts to bribe members of the Clark County Commission in exchange for political influence on zoning and development issues, FBI officials told the Sun earlier this week.

Dominic Gentile, Davidson's attorney, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment this morning.

The case developed out of the same probe that led to November's indictments of former commissioners Lance Malone and Dario Herrera, current commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and the plea agreements of Kenny and former strip club owner Michael Galardi.

Relying on more than 70,000 wiretap intercepts, prosecutors have alleged Kincaid-Chauncey, Herrera and Malone took thousands of dollars from Galardi in exchange for their votes and influence over matters involving three Las Vegas strip clubs Galardi owned at the time: Cheetahs, Jaguars and Leopard Lounge.

The FBI has recently been given county records the relating to the bitterly contested approval of the drugstore as the investigation continues.

For months, as the investigation into the relationship between Galardi and the county commissioners continued, there have been unconfirmed reports that the federal investigators were interested in land-use issues, and earlier this week FBI officials confirmed the reports to the Sun.

County Manager Thom Reilly and Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes said the most recent request for information, which dates back to early July, related to that single parcel involving the drugstore at Desert Inn Road and Buffalo Drive.

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

The location of the store and the amount of landscaping that should be required as a buffer to neighboring homes were among the issues debated by the commission.

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.

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.

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 on Blue Diamond Road, which had the support of county planning staff and hundreds of Southern Highlands residents.