Attorney general makes waves at City Hall

Dan Kulin

Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005 | 7:40 a.m.

Even City Hall insiders were surprised Wednesday morning to hear that newly appointed Attorney General Goerge Chanos would be looking into Las Vegas' dealings with Billy Walters and his Royal Links Golf Club.

Chanos' action caused the City Council to rescind its Nov. 2 approval of an agreement to allow Walters to build homes on the golf course -- he wants 1,200 there -- in return for $7.2 million. The AG's decision also had people wondering whether he was making a not-so-veiled criticism of local law enforcement.

Metro Police recently investigated the editing of an environmental report released in July that looked at the implications of allowing homes on the golf course, which is next to the city's sewage treatment plant.

Police also looked into allegations that former city Public Works Director Richard Goecke broke the law to help Walters in the late 1990s, when the city leased and then sold the golf course land to Walters.

Police said Goecke committed felonies during that time, but District Attorney David Roger concluded that the statute of limitations had passed for those crimes.

Geocke has denied any wrongdoing, and Walters is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Chanos and Gerald Gardner, a chief deputy who will oversee the AG's investigation, emphasized that they are in no way criticizing the work of Metro or Roger.

"We do not think that and we are not suggesting that," Gardner said in an interview. "The district attorney was only asked to look at the conduct by Mr. Goecke and whether that conduct was prosecutable today."

The difference, Chanos said in a separate interview, is "we'll be looking at the entire transaction from beginning to end and everyone involved. What they looked at is not as broad as what we will look at."

Gardner said the AG's office will be looking for any possible "criminal or civil violations," reaching back to 1996, which is when city officials and Walters reportedly first discussed putting a golf course next to the city's sewage treatment plant.

When asked what charges, criminal or civil, might apply to the case, and whether the statute of limitations would be a problem, Chanos would not say.

"We are out to simply expose what occurred," Chanos said. "We believe the people are entitled to know the facts."

Roger, during a separate interview, said: "If the statute of limitations had run out for Goecke, it ran out for others. I don't know how the attorney general will get around the statute of limitations."

Perhaps the AG's investigation will turn up some of the answers Sheriff Bill Young worries might never be discovered.

Young said the public might never find out why city officials did not go to law enforcement in the late 1990s with their concerns.

The explanation going around City Hall has been that the City Attorney's Office would have violated attorney-client rules by telling on city officials. Also, any alleged misdeeds were reported to top city officials, who moved to correct any problems.

But Young said all public officials have a duty to report possible criminal wrongdoing to law enforcement.

Young also said the fact that so many years have passed since the alleged misdeeds could hinder an investigation.

"I'm not sure you can completely recreate those circumstances," he said.

Chanos' actions prompted some to speculate that his decision was politically motivated, as he is sure to receive plenty of free press by re-examining Walters' dealings with the city.

But Chanos, who was appointed to the job earlier this month and faces an election next year to keep it, bristled at that notion.

"Anyone that does know me wouldn't even make that comment," Chanos said. "I didn't create the timing around this issue. ... I didn't create the cloud of controversy around the issue."

Mayor asked Walters to increase offer for land

Goodman on Thursday also shed some new light on his now-moot Nov. 2 vote to lift the deed restriction on Royal Links in return for $7.2 million.

The mayor said that before the vote, he asked Walters to give the city more money for the land, but Walters declined to increase his offer.

Now Walters is proposing that the city put the deed restriction out for public auction, but the mayor is saying no.

Because Walters owns the land, the deed restriction is valuable only to him. As a result, Goodman said, he believes Walters would be the only bidder.

But, the mayor stressed, "that is the point" -- the restriction is only valuable to Walters.

Two appraisals said the deed restriction is worth $24.1 million or $28.7 million.

Goodman also said the $7.2 million figure came from a calculation agreed to when Walters bought the land from the city in 1999 for $894,000. That price was based on the difference between the value of the land without the deed restriction, and its value with the restriction (which was the sale price), plus 6 percent interest annually.

But Walters has said that when he bought the land, he never dreamed he would one day return to the city and ask for the deed restriction to be lifted.

"If I'd thought that I'd have never agreed to the deed restriction," he said.

Goodman or Jones?

The mayor also leveled an apparent dig at his predecessor, former Mayor Jan Jones, who has been critical of Goodman at times.

"When I'm not mayor anymore I'm not going to criticize the next mayor," Goodman said during his regular Thursday press conference.

Asphalt Products Corp.'s appeal hearing delayed

On another subject, the City Council agreed Wednesday, as expected, to delay a hearing on Asphalt Products Corporation's appeal of city staff's decision to prohibit the company from bidding on the $35 million Centennial Hills Community Center.

City staff says the company did a poor job at the Stacey and Amanda Darling Memorial Tennis Center on Washington Avenue and Durango Drive -- where narrow but often long cracks reach across almost every one of the 23 new tennis courts.

Asphalt Products has retained attorney Richard Bryan, the former senator and governor, who asked the council to delay the hearing until Dec. 7 so he can get up to speed on the matter.

City officials expect there will be an attempt to settle the matter before the next council meeting.

Kulin can be reached at 259-8826 or at dan@lasvegassun.com.