Wednesday, June 21, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.
In 1985, a few months into my political baptism of fire as a reporter covering the Clark County Commission, a colleague asked me who was the most influential board member.
He wondered if it might not be the wily and feisty Paul Christensen, who had just come over from the City Council. I shook my head. "It's Manny Cortez," I replied. "He drives the board."
And he did. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Decisively. Cortez was the first great politician I covered, and no one did his job more skillfully and more unobtrusively.
As news of Cortez's passing reverberates through Southern Nevada, one image remains indelible. He'd sit on the commission dais, rocking slightly in his chair, as Christensen argued with another commissioner or Bruce Woodbury lobbied for some long-term goal. He would wait until the moment was right, then he would lean forward and punch on his microphone.
He would be brief, always right to the point, always with words that would navigate through a sea of rhetoric and rancor to the safe harbor that always held at least four votes. No one - no one - ever played the game of Count to Four more skillfully, more subtly than Manny Cortez.
When leadership was called for, he intuitively and happily grabbed the mantle, rarely roiling the waters and almost always divining exactly what solution would be fair and reasonable. And, of course, could garner four votes.
"He and (the late former Commissioner Bob) Broadbent were two of the best I've ever seen," said Pat Shalmy, who was the manager in those days. "Manny would never show his hand."
Said Billy Vassiliadis, a close Cortez friend: "He had about as great an intuition as anyone I know. He was so intuitive about people, about issues."
Indeed, his talent was ineffable, and yet somehow palpable. He had this air of authority, yet he did not come across as authoritarian. He rarely appeared to be combative, but he seemed to win almost every fight.
His understated style belied his toughness, too, with his hide thickened by an FBI crusade that included tactics as low as leaking news of a pending indictment just as one of his daughters was getting married. The indictment never came despite a Chinese water torture of a probe that dovetailed with the infamous Operation Yobo that claimed several prominent pols.
In fact, Vassiliadis recalled, the first time Cortez met undercover operative Steve Rybar, Cortez sensed he was a crook or fed and called many of his friends to warn them. "He called a lot of people," Vassiliadis said. FBI boss Joe "Yablonsky thought he would have gotten more people if it weren't for Manny."
Cortez also was that rarity in politics who didn't seem to fret much about the ramifications of a vote or a stance on an issue. He lived in the moment, analyzed that situation and did what he thought needed to be done. Or, as Vassiliadis put it, "Manny never looked past the issue or the decision. It was either right or wrong, it should pass or it should fail. He was willing to deal with the ramifications."
Cortez was a combination of Christensen's fearlessness and Woodbury's thoughtfulness, able to fuse those two qualities to create one of the most potent and effective forces local government has seen.
Those traits also made him successful when he left after four terms as a commissioner and went to work as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority boss. Many now are posthumously crowning Cortez as some sort of visionary, but I never saw him that way.
He led the LVCVA the way he led the County Commission, bringing together disparate interests on the Strip, in the business community and on his occasionally obstreperous board to ensure decisions were made and followed through upon. He was willing to take the heat, whether it was from Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson's blow torch or Steve Wynn's flamethrower. I still think Nike stole its slogan from what seemed to be Manny Cortez's career mantra.
I had seen Cortez a few times recently, and he seemed to be reveling in his retirement, smiling that same infectious smile and beaming about his daughter's candidacy for attorney general. He was so happy, so content that it makes his sudden passing much harder to swallow.
But I take solace in this thought: Somewhere, Manny Cortez is sitting back in his chair, rocking in his final relaxation, finally free from having to make the big decision, hoping his family, his friends and his community can move on without his help.
It will not be easy.
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