Friday, May 20, 2005 | 5:18 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at [email protected].
WEEKEND EDITION
May 21 - 22, 2005
As U.S. senators debate an important right not evident in the Constitution (the right to bloviate before cameras when almost no one else is around) and state lawmakers bicker over an important financial principle (exactly how to bribe the public with its own money), let me deal today with a more prosaic question: Could we do worse than Michael Mack?
It has become all too evident that The Accidental Councilman, appointed in 1999 only after then-Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald abruptly decided to support him, could be replaced by an accident waiting to happen. This now looks not only like a choice between the proverbial lesser of two evils, but also a choice between the lesser of two potential disasters.
Granted, campaigns have become fallible crucibles for determining governing prowess. Spin not only can fuzz up foibles; it can also obscure admirable qualities.
Occasionally, though, the heat of a political contest can flay the contenders, burning off any layers of artifice and superficiality and laying bare who the person really is. Let's hope that's not what's happening in the race for Mack's seat between Mary Gillins and Steve Ross. If this campaign indicates who these folks really are, the voters of Ward 6 might as well close their eyes and push either button.
Gillins, who works for the police union, has been disingenuous about her husband's lobbying for a sales tax increase for more cops, which she coincidentally supports. She has produced the usual drivel about fixing traffic problems and providing infrastructure for "managed, responsible" growth, but has not ventured below the surface of any issue. And while she has shamelessly exploited Ross' domestic violence arrest a dozen years ago, Gillins chickened out of a debate with her opponent last week because, she asserted, he was saying too many nasty things about her. What is this, high school?
Ross is hardly better. He has opportunistically opposed the sales tax increase for cops, saying he wants more police in neighborhoods but has farcically tried to make it seem as if Gillins proposed it. Ross also insists the money for cops should come from existing revenue sources. Where exactly? He has no idea. Ross also has the palaver machine on overdrive, producing banalities about how he will address traffic, air quality, "ill-advised projects" and parks. And on the seventh day, Ross rested.
Most newcomers who run don't have a clue what the job really is -- taking the time to actually go to City Council meetings and get educated on the issues rarely occurs to these people. So that's nothing new.
But what is stunning about this contest is just how ignorant both of the candidates seem about anything to do with the post. And there are always spinmeisters willing to help such candidates.
Indeed, the battle of the campaign consultants is more intriguing than these two candidates seeking the lower ground. Billy Rogers, who runs Southwest Strategies, originally was working with Ross and his guru, Gary Gray. But they split a few months ago, with much fingerpointing, and now Rogers, who is partners with ex-Councilman Michael McDonald and has a consulting agreement with Mack, is with Gillins.
This is almost as comical as Mack, who once publicly questioned McDonald's ethics, to be working with the man who once tried to prevent him from being appointed to the council. McDonald and Mack aren't just strange bedfellows; they are fellows who never liked each other. But, I presume, they like money enough to put their feelings aside.
Which naturally brings us to Mack, perhaps the most ethically tone-deaf elected official the state has seen and who has set new standards for obliviousness. Just last week, Mack was lamenting on Las Vegas ONE how unfair it was that Ross had attacked his integrity -- a good point since he has no integrity left to attack.
It is a fitting exclamation point to Mack's notorious tenure that he has worked for both candidates in this race -- early on for Ross and now for Gillins. A man of principle, he is -- or is it the principal in his bank account?
The comments about Mack in recent days by both candidates indicate just how weak they are.
Ross recently has taken to lambasting Mack for being in the pocket of developers, betraying the public trust and being an empty suit in "an empty seat." Nothing new there. But just a few months ago, Ross was extolling Mack as some kind of councilman extraordinaire, lavishing praise on him for "doing a good, good job" and making "good decisions for growth in the northwest corridor."
Ross defended himself on "Face to Face" last week by saying he had learned about Mack during the campaign and changed his mind. But does that mean he missed all the stories about Mack's ethical lapses for the last few years? Please.
As for Gillins, since Mack began working on her campaign through his consultant's agreement with Southwest Strategies, she has all but deified him. Mack will be her counselor because he "knows everything," Gillins said recently. Well, if Gillins is going to use Mack's knowledge base as her guide to being a good councilwoman -- she subsequently tried to back off her comments -- the state Ethics Commission is going to be quite busy again.
Pity the poor residents of Ward 6, many of them looking forward to the prospect of being represented by someone other than a man who has more successfully represented his own interests and acted as the mayor's pet rockhead.
"Anybody can do a better job than Michael Mack," Ross told the Las Vegas Sun's Dan Kulin last week.
Really? I am beginning to wonder.
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