Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006 | 12:35 p.m.
Bill Walters wasn't surprised. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said it ratified the City Council's original intention. And Assistant Attorney General Randal Munn said it would have no bearing on an ongoing investigation.
Those were the reactions to a study commissioned by the Sun that found that the public could benefit by as much as $38 million if the city lifts a deed restriction on Walters' Royal Links Golf Club to clear the way for a residential development.
"We knew we were doing the right thing for the taxpayers, so it's good that an independent study has confirmed that fact," Goodman said.
"I hope this will serve to promote the people's trust in the City Council and the belief that we continue to act in their best interests."
Walters, who has had to fend off accusations that he is getting the better of City Hall - and, by extension, taxpayers - in the land deal, said the study demonstrates that he is not the only one who would profit from the transaction.
"They obviously spent a lot more time and did a lot more in-depth computations than we did," Walters said of the study by the financial advisory firm of Stout Risius Ross Inc. "But the bottom line is it's the same thing we've been saying all along.
"We've been saying all along that it should be obvious to anyone who looked at this that we made a fair and serious offer to the city. The fact that an outside group with expertise has come to the same conclusion doesn't surprise me at all."
What sets the SRR analysis apart from two appraisals of the Royal Links property conducted for the city last year is that the earlier studies did not take into account the potential value of water now used at the golf course. If the golf course closes, that water - about 904,000 gallons daily - would be returned to Lake Mead and reused by other residential and business customers in the valley.
That distinction was not lost on Walters.
"You have people in the media who have been writing about this who frankly don't know what they're writing about," he said. "When you have people with personal agendas writing about things who don't have the background to know what they're talking about, I don't know how you combat that. But I think this study is very refreshing."
Walters said he believes city officials understand that the value of the water being returned to Lake Mead is an added benefit to the $7.2 million that he has offered the city to lift a deed restriction on the property.
"The city has known this all along," he said. ''That's why they initially approved it. They realized it was a good deal for the city and for taxpayers."
Councilman Larry Brown said he believes an investigation initiated by the attorney general's office into the city's dealings with Walters on Royal Links should proceed. But Brown said the Sun-commissioned analysis could be an important element for the City Council to consider if and when it reconsiders the lifting of the deed restriction.
"The report could be extremely beneficial in that it is another set of analyses that has been done on the Royal Links issue," Brown said. "The benefit to the public, be it tax dollars or water savings or new affordable housing, these will all have to be brought into the public dialogue."
Brown said that the "transparency" of the city's decision-making process into Walters' proposal is crucial so that "everyone sees all the information."
"This report, as an independent report, will be welcomed," Brown said.
Las Vegas City Coucilwoman Lois Tarkanian, though, was not so sure, saying that she would withhold comment "on something that is complicated" until she saw the study.
"It's a lot of information that I would like to go over thoroughly," she said.
She said that to date it has been difficult to get accurate information on the value of water that potentially would be transferred from Royal Links to other customers.
Tarkanian also has expressed concern about the potential impact that odors from the city's adjacent wastewater treatment plant could have on homes built on the Royal Links property.
"All I know is that excluding the water, we would be getting $7.2 million and that's about what we would have to spend to put up a wall (between Royal Links and the treatment plant) to give us legal protection," Tarkanian said.
Nevada Attorney General George Chanos, who last November began an investigation into the Royal Links deal - a probe from which he removed himself due to a potential conflict of interest stemming from his role in an unrelated Las Vegas land plan - referred questions about the SRR report to Munn.
Munn, who is coordinating the investigation, said while the SRR report could be relevant to future city votes on the issue, it would have no bearing on the inquiry being conducted for the attorney general's office by special counsel Senn Meulemans LLP.
"The calculus that you indicate establishes the value of the decision of a public body," Munn said. "Our investigation deals with the motivation of the votes in the past regarding transactions by Mr. Walters."
The study calculates the value of the Walters proposal as it goes forward before the City Council and later, the Clark County Commission, Munn said. In contrast, investigators, he noted, are "looking retrospectively at past behavior. "
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