Commissioner won’t explain land deal

Tony Cook, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

Less than six months after helping to obtain a 2005 zoning change for a local hotel developer, Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald acquired 4.7 acres of land from the same developer in the boomtown of White Hills, Ariz.

The sale price: $125,000. The catch: The developer loaned her $100,000 to make the purchase.

Boggs McDonald never disclosed the loan on her financial disclosure forms, even though state law requires candidates to reveal loans of more than $5,000.

Moreover, Boggs McDonald voted on a liquor and gaming issue involving a tavern also owned by the developer, Susan Mardian. While the vote was a routine one, Boggs McDonald again failed to disclose her indebtedness to Mardian.

And there is another financial link between the commissioner and the developer. Over the past two years, Mardian has donated $11,500 to Boggs McDonald's campaign.

Boggs McDonald did not return phone calls for this story. Her campaign referred The Sun to attorney John Mowbray, to whom the Sun posed a list of questions Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday evening, Mowbray said he had no information about the land deal.

In October 2004, Mardian wanted to build a 144-room full-service Holiday Inn on five acres that she owned on the 6200 block of South Rainbow Boulevard.

"Part of our Holiday Inn franchise agreement requires us to build two hotels," Mardian explained in a letter to the county. "One limited-service and one full-service."

Zoning at the site, however, allowed only single-family residences on half-acre lots. Mardian wanted the property zoned for general commercial, which would permit the construction of the Holiday Inn - and, in so doing, probably raise the property's value.

The nearest similar facility was seven miles away, and the proposed four-story Holiday Inn would be close to Mardian's BlackJack Lounge. The Mardian family already had received approval to build a Holiday Inn Express just south of the proposed full-service hotel.

Mardian also asked that the usual requirement for separation between the roadway and sidewalk be set aside because adjacent properties had sidewalks abutting the street.

County staff recommended approval of Mardian's request. The commission approved the zoning change on Jan. 19, 2005.

Although the board's policy stipulates that the commissioner whose district encompasses the zoning change request should be the one to propose such an action, that did not happen in this case.

The Holiday Inn site is in Commissioner Rory Reid's district, but Reid abstained from voting because the Mardian family was a client of his law firm.

Instead, Boggs McDonald made the motion to grant Mardian's request. It passed with five votes, with Reid abstaining and Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates absent.

Months before the vote, Mardian had given $5,000 in campaign contributions to Boggs McDonald in 2004. Then, three weeks before Mardian wrote to the county about the zoning issue, she gave Boggs McDonald an additional $2,500 contribution. A month before commissioners voted, Mardian contributed another $1,000. And Boggs McDonald's campaign received another $3,000 from Mardian during the last quarter of 2005, raising the two-year total to $11,500.

The Mardian family did not return calls.

Less than six months after the zoning vote, Boggs McDonald entered into a financial agreement in the spring of 2005 with the Mardian family.

Mardian and her husband, Leonard Mardian, also are developing a 25,000-acre master planned community in White Hills, Ariz. The development sits about 30 miles south of the Hoover Dam near the Nevada-Arizona border and, after the completion of the Hoover Dam bypass, is envisioned as a bedroom community of Las Vegas, 60 miles to the northwest.

Through their development company, the Mardians sold 4.7 acres to LSAR LLC, an entity controlled by Boggs McDonald and her husband, Steven McDonald, according to Mohave County, Ariz., property records.

The sale price was $125,000, according to an affidavit of property value filed with Mohave County.

The affidavit also reveals that the sale was financed with a loan from the seller - the Mardians' company.

According to the deed of trust, the loan was for $100,000. The interest rate and terms of the loan were not disclosed. The affidavit's space for details about the down payment also is blank, raising the question of where the additional $25,000 came from - or whether, in fact, the money was paid at all.

In May 2006, Boggs McDonald filed a financial disclosure form with the Nevada secretary of state. She listed the White Hills property, but did not mention the Mardians .

Under Nevada law, public officers must disclose any creditor to whom they or a member of their household owe more than $5,000, including debt secured by a deed of trust for real estate other than a personal residence.

Boggs McDonald's path again crossed that of the Mardians last month when she voted to approve a top employee designated to represent the BlackJack Lounge before the state liquor and gaming boards.

Although the vote was a routine one and occurred as part of the board's consent agenda - a list of items that commissioners approve with one vote - Boggs McDonald failed to disclose any financial ties to the tavern's owners.

Nevada ethics laws require a public officer to disclose any gifts or loan received from someone before voting on any matter involving that person.