WEEK IN REVIEW:
Misconduct alleged in Walters land deal
Bill Walters' Royal Links Golf Club is the subject of a memo questioning the decisions of former Las Vegas Public Works Director Richard Goecke. Photo by Clint Karlsen. Duke Adams, a 62-year-old retired Elvis impersonator, is reflected in the mirror as he poses for a photo Wednesday in Las Vegas. Adams helped Las Vegas police arrest a man suspected of stealing more than $300,000 worth of memorabilia from the Elvis-A-Rama Museum, authorities said Wednesday. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Decisions by Las Vegas' former public works director helped developer Bill Walters before, during and after he took control of city land to build a golf course, according to a City Hall memo released Monday.
Between 1996 and 1998, Deputy City Attorney John Redlein said, Richard Goecke violated bidding or spending protocols nine times, including providing information exclusively to Walters, trying to change contracts without bids and negotiating a favorable deal to irrigate the golf course after Walters had won the bid.
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Goecke also allowed Walters to build Royal Links Golf Club on an extra 29 acres that was not part of the original agreement, according to a memo written by Redlein on July 22.
"I don't think the law was violated, unless John Redlein knows the law better than I do," said Goecke, who retired in September. "Everything with Bill Walters was done in a public forum."
Walters said, "This is nothing more and nothing less than a deal between a city and a developer. Everything was done in a legal, ethical, open manner."
The memo outlines a deal that began nearly nine years ago, but resurfaced this year as the city considered, and approved on Nov. 2, lifting a deed restriction to allow Walters to build homes on the 160-acre golf course.
After the reports of questionable conduct surfaced, Councilman Steve Wolfson asked that the council reconsider at Wednesday's council meeting its previous vote to lift the restriction.
"This City Council is deserving of a full and complete discussion from a number of parties involved, in a public setting," Wolfson said.
In addition, Mayor Oscar Goodman invited 10 people involved in the deals or the investigations of it to attend the meeting. The list includes Walters, four current city officials, four former city officials and a police detective.
Former Mayor Jan Jones was among those asked to attend.
"If they want to know answers, why don't they call me?" she asked. "I don't see the purpose."
MONDAY
Nevada Power to seek rate increase
Nevada Power Co. expects to seek an 8.8 percent rate increase in January that would raise local customers' summertime energy bills by $16 per month.
"Like nearly every other utility in the United States, we have been confronted with spiraling and unprecedented price increases for natural gas, exacerbated considerably by hurricanes in the Gulf," said Walt Higgins, chairman and chief executive of Nevada Power parent Sierra Pacific Power.
Damage to natural gas rigs and gas processing plants along the Gulf of Mexico caused prices to rise for the fuel that powers most of the company's electricity generating plants, he said.
TUESDAY
Tax deduction may be renewed
Congress is moving to renew a popular benefit that allows residents of Nevada and seven other states to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal income tax.
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, unveiled a bill that would extend the sales tax deduction for a year. Otherwise the tax break expires at the end of this year.
Congress in 2004 approved sales tax write-offs for a two-year period, temporarily restoring a benefit that was repealed in 1986.
WEDNESDAY
Elvis look-alike helps restore cache
An Elvis Presley look-alike helped Las Vegas police find a $300,000 cache of The King's jewelry stolen last year from the Elvis-A-Rama Museum.
Duke Adams, 62, was leaving a pharmacy when a man approached him and asked if he wanted to buy some genuine Presley jewelry. Adams, an avid Elvis memorabilia collector and occasional impersonator, declined at first, but as the man described the pieces, Adams made a connection.
"Then it clicked -- Elvis-A-Rama. The thought just clicked. Boom," said Adams, who contacted police and set up a meeting with the man where officers apprehended him.
THURSDAY
Malone sentenced in corruption case
Former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone was sentenced to three years in prison for bribing politicians on behalf of strip club magnate Michael Galardi.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller said Malone's crimes validate every cynic's suspicions about the political system and are not mitigated by the fact that the bribes involved relatively small amounts of money.
"I'm extremely sorry for my family, for Rosemary and my two sons, and my mom and dad," said Malone, who has vowed to appeal his conviction. "I'm sorry for putting them through this nightmare."
FRIDAY
Rodeo to remain a Las Vegas event
The National Finals Rodeo will remain in Las Vegas through 2014.
Troy Ellerman, commissioner of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, confirmed the group's board voted to keep the annual December rodeo in Las Vegas through the middle of the next decade.
The world championship rodeo has been at the Thomas & Mack Center since 1985 and the current contract doesn't expire until 2009.
