Columnist Jon Ralston: On a courageous public servant who couldn’t sit still and watch the perversion of the governmental process

Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005 | 8:19 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face with Jon Ralston on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the daily e-mail newsletter RalstonFlash.com. His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

Lori Wohletz is not some rabble-rousing, conspiracy theorizing gadfly toiling in the bowels of Las Vegas City Hall. No, she is a matter-of-fact, plain-speaking engineer, for 11 years the city's environmental officer -- from all appearances an exemplary, dedicated employee.

And that makes her allegations about the city's questionable decision to lift a deed restriction for developer Bill Walters so disturbing, lifting a veil on how business as usual on Stewart Avenue is all about politics, juice and spinelessness.

Wohletz's decision to resign just as several law enforcement probes of Waltersgate have begun demonstrates qualities that few at the city -- Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian is a notable exception -- possess: honor and integrity.

In an interview last week, Wohletz said she decided to resign only after a series of events persuaded her that the council, with the manager's office doing its bidding, had reached a conclusion -- lift a deed restriction so Walters could build a money-making subdivision on a failing golf course -- and importuned staffers, including her, to provide the evidence to buttress the fait accompli.

This perversion of the process was so outrageous and blatant that when Manager Doug Selby sent out a Thanksgiving Eve e-mail to city employees justifying what had occurred, Wohletz could take it no more.

"I felt like the guy called me a liar," Wohletz said of Selby's e-mail.

Wohletz blew the whistle inside City Hall for weeks and then publicly last month on the potential costs of allowing houses a few feet from a city waste-water treatment facility. She said city higher-ups were so desperate to get the deed restriction lifted that an agenda item was contemplated to approve the deal conditioned on Walters doing an engineering report.

Wohletz says city legal eagles eventually scuttled that idea because of potential liability issues in allowing Walters to control the engineering study. You think? Perhaps Walters should simply be made an honorary member of the council.

Wohletz says that in the days before the city voted to lift the deed restriction, her efforts and those of her colleagues, who believed the residential development could cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, were frustrated by an edict from on high that "we were supposed to do whatever it takes to make the deed restriction work."

Wohletz even went so far as to write Councilman Gary Reese a memo -- and she copied the city attorney and Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell -- in which she accused Selby of attempting "to manipulate the expert panel" charged with evaluating the impacts by skewing the questions in Walters' favor.

In that e-mail two days after the deed restriction was lifted, Wohletz informed Reese that at least an additional $30 million will be required if Royal Links is erased as buffer from the treatment plant. She further informed Reese that putting residences so close to the facility will "cause compliance problems for the lifetime of the facility" and that Selby knew this.

Reese, who has defended Walters in the media, gave her a brush-off response later that day: "Even if you ultimately disagree with the council's decision, know that I appreciate your input." That appreciation -- and a quarter -- will get you a parking ticket downtown.

Wohletz is gratified by the support she has received from within City Hall but she still feels as if she is alone. And why not? Look what she is up against: A prostrate (if not complicit in the cover-up) manager's office and an invertebrate council led by Mayor Oscar Goodman, Walters' friend and ex-lawyer, who pushed for the deal.

And if Wohletz wants any insight into how the city treats whistleblowers, one day after Deputy City Attorney John Redlein infuriated Mayor Oscar Goodman by informing some council members about some of the alleged misdeeds, City Attorney Brad Jerbic unconscionably demoted him on July 8.

This story is much closer to the beginning than the end. Wohletz hints that questions could be raised about how much the city has cost taxpayers catering to Walters' water needs at Desert Pines.

Her complaints about this transaction don't even address the insanely low $7.2 million price Walters was asked to pay -- as little as one-eighth of the land's value -- or the alleged crimes that may have occurred when Walters first obtained the Royal Links land.

Wohletz one day could be seen as the courageous whistleblower who exposed the city's corruption for all to see, maybe even emboldening others to come forward. With all the media attention, and local, state and federal agencies looking into this mess, that day may come sooner rather than later.