Jan Jones Actions of then-mayor mentioned in documents involving developer Bill Walters Click image for enlargement.

The Las Vegas city attorney's office has raised numerous concerns about the city's dealings with developer Bill Walters and his Royal Links Golf Club over the past nine years, memos released Wednesday show.

The earliest red flags were raised in 1997, when the city was looking for a developer to lease city-owned land and build a golf course next to a sewage plant as a buffer to surrounding development.

In an internal memo, Deputy City Attorney John Redlein noted Walters was the only potential bidder given a soil study on the land. Redlein also wrote that then-Mayor Jan Jones tried to stop an investigation into why Walters had received the study while other potential bidders had not.

Jones later agreed that the project should be put out to bid again. Walters won that bid and built the Royal Links Golf Club on the 160-acre parcel near Vegas Valley Drive and Sloan Lane.

"I received a telephone call from a shaken Councilman (Michael) McDonald who informed me that he had just been roasted by the Mayor for permitting this inquiry to occur," Redlein wrote in the memo to City Attorney Brad Jerbic and then-Deputy City Manager Lynn Macy. "She informed him that I was working on this project (looking into why only Walters had received the soil study) and made it plain that it should go no further. ... The Mayor had just been after Lynn on the same subject. The Mayor was evidently so angry that Lynn had some concern that she might be punished for asking me to work on this."

The memo was one of nine documents on the Royal Links deal that the city released to state investigators Wednesday.

The documents had been protected by attorney-client privilege until the City Council unanimously voted to waive that right and directed City Manager Doug Selby to do the same for himself and city staff.

The documents will be examined as part of an investigation on behalf of the attorney general's office looking at the city's dealings with Royal Links, where Walters now intends to build a 1,200-home subdivision.

Jones said in an interview Wednesday that when she first heard in 1997 that staff wanted to re-bid the lease for the land, she worried it was city bureaucracy unnecessarily delaying a needed project.

However, when Redlein showed Jones how Walters' getting a copy of the study before he submitted his bid could give him an unfair advantage, she said she agreed to another round of bidding.

"I agreed he (Redlein) was correct," Jones said Wednesday. "Everyone should have access to that (report)."

Walters secured the land for Royal Links in 1997 by entering a 50-year deal to lease it from the city.

In 1999, just as the golf course was set to open, Walters purchased the property for $894,000. The price was well below market rates because of a deed restriction prohibiting homes.

Walters announced last year that he planned to build homes on the golf course land. A deal was presented to the City Council calling for Walters to pay $7.2 million -- the residential value of the land in 1999 plus 6 percent annually in interest -- to have the deed restriction lifted. He also agreed to return rights to buy inexpensive treated water from the adjacent sewage plant.

The memos released Wednesday contained questions from city staff about Walters' lease and purchase of the land, and the recent proposal to build homes on it:

• In March 1998, Redlein wrote a memo describing actions by former Public Works Director Richard Goecke and the city that benefited Walters. Included was Walters' construction of Royal Links on 26 additional acres without City Council approval.

The council later amended its deal with the developer to include the acreage, and Walters' lease payment was increased by 10 percent.

Of the amended lease, Redlein wrote, "the additional land is worth ten times the proposed additional lease payment."

• In January 1999, Chief Deputy City Attorney Tom Green wrote a memo to then-City Manager Virginia Valentine about Walters' proposal to buy the land from the city instead of lease it.

Green said that the golf course was supposed to provide discounted golf for city residents, and that was why the city had given Walters $1.7 million in water credits for building infrastructure to irrigate the course.

"The net result (of selling the land to Walters) would be that the City would receive the $800,000 purchase price but would lose $1.7 million in water fees. The situation can also be viewed as the Walters Group receiving the property free from the City, together with an additional $900,000 in free water."

Green added: "There is a substantial argument that such a transaction would violate the public purpose doctrine." Nevada law requires the city to sell property "for the common benefit" of its citizens, Green wrote.

• Last August, as Las Vegas was evaluating Walters' proposal to build homes on the land, City Attorney Jerbic wrote to City Manager Selby and other senior staff, saying his office would not sign off on the proposed agreement. Jerbic said it would be difficult for the city to force Walters to pay for odor controls at the sewage plant needed to accommodate homes as close as 20 feet from the plant.

The controversy over the proposal to build homes on Royal Links began last summer, when an engineering report commissioned by the city was heavily edited to downplay the potential negative aspects of turning the golf course into a housing development.

A police investigation into the edited report found that Goecke might have committed criminal acts in the late 1990s that benefited Walters and hurt taxpayers.

No criminal charges were pursued, however, because District Attorney David Roger said the statute of limitations had passed.

Attorney General George Chanos later announced that his office would conduct an investigation, which he said would be broader than that of Las Vegas police.

With the state investigation pending, the City Council reversed an earlier decision to allow Walters to build homes on the golf course land.

Goecke has denied any wrongdoing, saying all his decisions were approved by the City Council.

Walters has also denied any wrongdoing.

Goecke left the city in September.

Before releasing the documents Wednesday, Mayor Oscar Goodman said that it was a "sad day" for the city and that waiving the attorney-client privilege had set a dangerous precedent that could stifle conversation in City Hall.

But Councilman Larry Brown said public officials waiving that right was different from other circumstances in which conversations between clients and their lawyers are protected.

"We're a public agency and we're a government," Brown said. "Everything I do ... that's public information."