Vegas planning commissioner ousted; critics cite stadium vote backlash

Las Vegas is about to lose one of its longest-tenured planning commissioners and it’s not at all clear why.

City officials say Commissioner Byron Goynes, first appointed in 2000, has served for too long on the planning board and will have to give up his seat under a term limit ordinance adopted in 2011.

But they say former Planning Commission Chairman Ric Truesdell, who was appointed to the panel a year before Goynes, can stay.

Some fear the move amounts to political fallout from the city’s now-abandoned plan to spend public money on a $200 million, 24,000-seat downtown soccer stadium.

Others say Goynes is simply the victim of a technicality unearthed in a 4-year-old ordinance sponsored by Councilman Ricki Barlow, who has twice reappointed Goynes to the Planning Commission, an advisory panel to the City Council.

Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who reappointed Truesdell in 2011, did not return requests for comment. Nor did City Attorney Brad Jerbic, who first brought the term limit ordinance to the city clerk’s attention last week.

City officials say they are still researching whether Truesdell ought to step down from the commission.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear why Goynes’ and Truesdell’s terms are being handled differently under the city’s term limit ordinance.

On paper, the two commissioners have served similar stints on the planning panel, with only one recent politically charged vote sticking out from a pile of otherwise unremarkable zoning variance and planning permit items.

That vote saw Goynes move against a controversial February text amendment that would have cleared a path for the city to spend public money to host “a broader range of fee-based recreational activities” — not just soccer — at a future downtown stadium. The amendment failed 6-1, with Truesdell casting the lone vote in favor of an item some commissioners viewed as a referendum on the stadium issue itself. City leaders overruled commissioners’ recommendation on the matter a month later.

That’s left political consultant and longtime stadium subsidy foe Lisa Mayo a little wary of the the city’s motives in ousting Goynes.

“I think it’s stadium politics and payback,” Mayo said Tuesday. “I still think the stadium’s out there. I think what’s going to happen is they’re going to say ‘hey, let’s not let this new (parking) garage sit empty.’”

Mayo, who managed Councilman Stavros Anthony’s failed campaign to unseat Goodman early this month, said primary races run by Barlow and other pro-stadium incumbents would have been a cakewalk if not for questions Anthony, Goynes and others raised about the city’s defunct stadium proposal.

Anthony was unceremoniously deposed from his role as mayor pro tem a little more than a week after he lost the mayor’s race.

“Getting rid of Truesdell is a big issue for Carolyn or Oscar (Goodman),” Mayo said. “If it’s Byron’s time to go, great, but it should be fair across the board.”

Barlow said there is no question Goynes will have to leave the planning panel. He said the city will have to make a decision on Truesdell’s fate by May or June.

That decision might hinge on a pair of “breaks” Truesdell took from the commission to run for City Council seats in 2004 and 2012.

Those breaks could see Truesdell squeeze through a loophole meant to exempt those who have served partial stints on the Planning Commission from Las Vegas’ three-term cap on appointments.

Barlow said there’s nothing underhanded about Goynes’ departure, explaining the commissioner fits “like a square peg in a square hole” within his ordinance’s description of commissioners barred from serving more than 12 years on the planning panel.

He had less to say about the alleged whiff of stadium politics surrounding the move.

“The best thing I can say is read the ordinance,” Barlow added. “(The politics) are not something I’m even remotely willing to comment on.”

Goynes said he was blindsided by the move.

Reached for comment Thursday, the four-term planning commissioner said he had to hear about it secondhand, from a staffer in the city clerk’s office. He said the news initially upset Barlow, who he said promised to “look into the matter” with the city attorney.

Goynes said he thought the city’s term limit ordinance was designed to allow commissioners to serve the same terms as their appointing council member.

He, like Barlow, declined to speculate on the political environment surrounding his ouster, though he said the move had drawn the attention of his colleagues.

“(Barlow) could probably propose an ordinance to get this fixed,” Goynes said. “If I’m termed out, they should have a bust of Ric Truesdell in front of City Hall.”

Truesdell, a commercial real estate broker, faced questions late last year over his decision to vote on medical marijuana permit applications in which he or his company had a vested financial interest — votes he said he felt “very comfortable” taking.

He said he doesn’t believe he is termed out of office, but would leave the final decision up to City Clerk Luann Holmes.

Holmes said she didn’t know whether Truesdell qualified for another term and deferred comment to acting Planning Director Tom Perrigo, who declined through a spokesman to comment until the city attorney’s office wraps up its research into the matter.

Planning Commissioner Vicki Quinn, who joined Goynes in opposing the divisive stadium-related text amendment, called Goynes “the best planning commissioner the city’s ever had,” adding she was shocked to see him go.

Quinn said she wasn’t sure how or why questions surrounding commissioner term limits weren’t examined sooner after the city’s term limit rules were first adopted in 2011.

The Planning Commission serves as a recommending board to the City Council, which has the final say on all city zoning and land use issues. Appointees to the seven-member planning board serve four-year terms and are paid $80 for every planning meeting they attend.

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven.