Atkinson Gates tells why she kept quiet

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates suspected some of her former colleagues were engaging in corrupt activities long before news of the FBI's G-Sting investigation broke, but didn't go to authorities because she didn't feel it was her business.

After 14 years as commissioner, Atkinson Gates announced her resignation Tuesday and plans to step down March 2. Her decision was driven by a desire to spend more time with her family, finish her doctorate at UNLV (ironically, her dissertation is on public corruption) and concentrate on her new business of custom-designing homes, she said.

During her time on the commission, she served alongside Erin Kenny, Dario Herrera, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Lance Malone - all of whom have pleaded guilty to or been convicted of accepting bribes for votes.

On Tuesday Las Vegas ONE's Jeff Gillan asked Atkinson Gates in a TV interview: "So you had a sense back then that there might have been some stuff going on?"

"Oh, absolutely," she said. "When I found out that ... what I thought was correct, it was disappointing."

She said Wednesday that the clues had been plentiful.

"You can tell that something is going on just by the way people vote," she said.

Some of those now serving or facing prison time would show up at planning commission meetings, which county commissioners generally do not attend, and talk to planning commissioners in the backroom before the meeting, she said.

Some of the since-convicted commissioners also would try to persuade Atkinson Gates to change her vote on issues. And county staffers complained to her about other commissioners pushing them to make certain recommendations.

But if the clues made her wonder whether her fellow commissioners were on the take, why not tell authorities?

"It wasn't my business," she said.

Even as an elected official charged with overseeing the county, "my experience has been mind your own business," she said.

"I didn't know for a fact. It's just what I thought. I didn't have any proof. What if I were wrong?"

Eventually, FBI wiretaps led to a mountain of evidence - enough to turn strip club owner Michael Galardi into a state's witness. He confessed to offering several commissioners money and other favors in exchange for votes favorable to his clubs.

Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics, noted that state law addresses the situation in which Atkinson Gates found herself.

State law says: "It is hereby declared to be the public policy of this state that a state officer or employee and a local governmental officer or employee are encouraged to disclose, to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, improper governmental action, and it is the intent of the Legislature to protect the rights of a state officer or employee and a local governmental officer or employee who makes such a disclosure."

Beyond the law, Walton said, Atkinson Gates should have felt obliged to inform the Clark County district attorney, Nevada attorney general or U.S. attorney about the pattern of irregularities she witnessed.

"Anything that would be polluting or corrupting of two or three people is going to spread, at least by reputation and association," he said. "It would be better to speak up."