The Fallacy of Expanding Redevelopment in North County, and How this Expansion is being used to build infrastructure for future Large Developers, Michael Hohl, Big George and John Serpa.

BY PAUL BROWN , Southern Nevada Director of PLAN

 

Six years ago, I missed a golden opportunity. Back then, a Clark County official called me to a private one-on-one meeting in his office. He had in his hand a copy of our Jackpot report, which tracked campaign contributions to state legislators.

He asked if the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada could do a Jackpot-style report on the Clark County Commission. He suspected special interests were giving campaign donations to commissioners right before crucial votes (for example, before votes for controversial zoning variances).

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to do a local Jackpot report, which takes hundreds of hours to compile. I wish I had found the time. The G-Sting scandal is all about so-called campaign contributions.

Former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone and a couple of San Diego city councilmen were recently found guilty of federal political corruption charges. Malone, working for strip club owner Michael Galardi, worked out a tit-for-tat deal with the councilmen. He funneled campaign contributions to them and in return, they promised to weaken the rules regulating Galardi's strip club. San Diego jurors decided the campaign contributions were actually bribes.

But when the trial of Malone and former Clark County Commissioners Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey comes to Las Vegas next year, don't necessarily expect guilty verdicts. In Nevada, if it looks like a bribe and it smells like a bribe, then it's probably a legal campaign contribution. Reforms to our weak campaign finance laws are long overdue.

For example, in San Diego, campaign contributions are limited to $250 from a single person or company. In Nevada, you can give up to $5,000 in the primary and another $5,000 in the general election. And, the law is so full of holes that you could drive the monorail through it. A single corporation can legally give a candidate $100,000 or more. Special interests are not giving that kind of cash out of civic duty. They want something in return.

Some people have criticized Malone's attorney, Dominic Gentile, for describing the $34,500 payoffs to the San Diego councilmen as "chump change." But in the high-finance world of campaign contributions, Gentile is absolutely right.

And who gives big-time money to county commission campaigns? Not strip club owners.

Developers give hundreds of thousands of dollars to county commissioners, much more than topless nightclub owners give. But going after the developers is not as sexy a story as going after strip club owners.

G-Sting makes it clear that our campaign finance laws need to be reformed. We should make it a criminal offense for a county commissioner to receive a campaign contribution right before a crucial vote. The current system is nothing but legalized bribery.

We should close loopholes so that companies cannot go over the already too-high campaign contribution limit of $5,000. We should demand that our state disclosure laws mirror the stricter federal laws.

In Nevada, we're following the titillating sleaze, not the big-time money from developers and others. And that is a mistake. It is another golden opportunity missed.

Paul Brown is the Southern Nevada Director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.