Editorial: Commissioner on hot seat

Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, on November's ballot for re-election, has been at the center of a lot of potentially damaging political developments in recent weeks. The latest issue, first revealed Friday by Tony Cook, the Las Vegas Sun's Clark County government reporter, involves the commissioner's failure to disclose a $100,000 loan she accepted from a developer.

The developer appears from time to time before the County Commission. In fact, less than six months before Boggs McDonald accepted the loan, she helped the developer win a zoning change from the commission. And after she had accepted the loan, she voted affirmatively on another matter affecting the developer.

Boggs McDonald and her husband used the borrowed money to buy 4.7 acres of a master-planned community the developer is building in Arizona, about 30 miles south of Hoover Dam.

State law (NRS 281.571, paragraph c) requires that public officials and candidates for public office disclose real estate - excluding their personal residence - in which they, or a member of their household, have a "legal or beneficial interest" if the fair market value is $2,500 or more. The law specifically states that the disclosure must be made if the real estate is in Nevada "or an adjacent state."

According to this law, in paragraph d, disclosure must also include "the name of each creditor to whom he or a member of his household owes $5,000 or more, except for: a debt secured by a mortgage or deed of trust of real property which is not required to be listed pursuant to paragraph (c).

Boggs McDonald's lawyer told the Sun that she interpreted language on the state's campaign form, modeled after paragraph d, to mean that she didn't have to disclose the creditor. In our reading of paragraphs c and d, Boggs McDonald was in fact required to disclose the creditor, and it is hard to believe that with her political experience she wouldn't know that. Certainly the public expects elected officials to disclose their financial ties to people who appear before them and ask for their votes.

Instead of pointing to the law as a reason for disclosing, Boggs McDonald is trying to use it as a way of not disclosing.

Boggs McDonald began serving on the Clark County Commission in April 2004 after being appointed to an open seat by Gov. Kenny Guinn. After she won the seat on her own in the November 2004 general election, a jubilant Boggs McDonald told her supporters, "We'll have to do this all over again in 2006."

That seemed reasonably certain then, despite a high-profile blemish on her record, that of having accepted a $56,000-a-year job as a board member of Station Casinos in 2003 while serving as a Las Vegas City Councilwoman.

For that she was criticized by many, including the Editorial Board of this newspaper, as her Station position saddled her with a conflict of interest on the hot-button issue of neighborhood casinos.

But she resigned from Station Casinos after accepting Guinn's appointment to the County Commission. After this she was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party.

But today Boggs McDonald's re-election to the County Commission is anything but certain. In recent weeks she has been accused by two unions, the Police Protective Association and the Culinary Union, of not living in her district, which blankets southwestern Clark County. The accusations are hard to refute, as they come complete with videos of her entering and leaving, and attending to chores, at a home clearly outside the district's boundaries.

The unions also accused Boggs McDonald of violating state law by using money raised for her re-election campaign for personal use, specifically to pay her children's nanny. While not admitting guilt, the commissioner has said she will reimburse her campaign.

Once a rising star, Boggs McDonald is now a beleaguered candidate with a lot of legitimate questions to answer about her ethics.