Some commissioners haven’t learned not to meddle with airport contracts

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

If last week’s mind-boggling vote on a lucrative airport concession reveals any truth, it is that the Clark County Commission remains just a hair’s breadth away from another McCarran corruption scandal.

How close? One vote.

In an issue freighted with politics and juice, commissioners voted 4-3 on Tuesday to allow a simple contractual provision to go forward on a news and gift concession, nearly bowing to the entreaties of the previous store tenant, a company that had defaulted on its lease and owed the airport $1 million. Why that concessionaire, Ayalas Inc., which essentially had been forced out of a store for nonperformance, should have any say in who took over the property is unfathomable. And this sad spectacle was redolent of the lobbying and cronyism that characterized the 1997 Airportgate scandal in which commissioners fixed a bid process to allow friends to obtain profitable concessions.

Commissioners stuck their noses into what should have been a simple landlord-tenant dispute at the airport — in the absence of any substantive reason — apparently because of the almost mystical abilities of one lawyer, the supremely connected Jay Brown. Brown, whose closeness to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is well known, and Chris Kaempfer, one of the valley’s most effective administrative lawyers, tried to persuade commissioners to undermine a competitor, Hudson, which is the C Gates’ master concessionaire.

They did so only a few short weeks after the county had given the in-default Ayalas what amounted to a seven-figure going-away present because of fears that the way the company had set up the concession’s ownership (with an LLC) had made the back rent unrecoverable. But that was not enough for Brown, who also wanted commissioners to ignore Hudson’s contractual right to take over the concession, giving rise to public speculation from one board member and a Hudson lobbyist that something again was rotten at McCarran.

Four commissioners were immune to Brown’s spell — Tom Collins, Chris Giunchigliani, Susan Brager and Lawrence Weekly — just enough to allow Hudson to exercise its first right of refusal the board approved in April. Commissioners Rory Reid and Steve Sisolak were outspoken opponents of allowing Hudson to take the store, insisting their objections were because the master concessionaire had agreed to go out for a request for proposal, but the pair looked more like Brown’s pawns. A mute Larry Brown (no relation) also voted against Hudson.

But even if Hudson at one time (before agreeing to take on the store’s employees) had agreed to go out for bids to maintain good relations with the board, the company had no obligation to give up its right of first refusal. And Hudson attorney Todd Bice was irate at a suggestion by Kaempfer (Jay Brown did no public talking) that Ayalas never would have agreed to a termination agreement if an RFP were not the next step. (No such promise was part of the termination agreement.)

Bice wondered whether “there was a plan to use that (RFP) process for some inappropriate purpose,” echoing a comment by Brager, who wondered if Ayalas could sneak back into the store by becoming part of an LLC during an RFP process.

A clearly angry Bice also told the board that Ayalas had tried to “twist our arms to buy their assets” — a clear implication that Brown & Co. attempted to induce Hudson to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to make their political troubles with the commission go away. Now that’s juice.

Last week’s hearing comes after a tortured history in which Hudson had hired ex-Gov. Bob Miller and veteran lobbyist Frank Schreck, only to lose the news and gift store in 2007 to Ayalas. It was widely believed at the time that Ayalas, operator of a dozen airport specialty stores, had overbid and would never make its nut.

Brown privately has tried to blame Ayalas’ failure on the airport’s misleading the company on the store’s configuration. But the record shows the airport bent over backward to help — including offering to substantially reduce a minimum guarantee — before going for termination.

Usually reserved airport boss Randall Walker was so perturbed by Ayalas’ behavior that he said Tuesday he would recommend the board “never consider them for another opportunity at the airport based on their performance.” Hardly surprising. But with Brown on their side and the commissioners — or enough of them — on his, it could happen again.

The main lesson of Airportgate a dozen years ago was to keep the politicians out of the bid award process. Once they took it back in their own hands last week, commissioners almost did it again.

How close is almost? One vote.