Maybe Councilman Mack isn't a crook. Maybe he's a moron.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 2, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Maybe Councilman Mack isn't a crook. Maybe he's a moron.
If someone named Rockefeller or Kennedy or Morgan testified that in between closing up the summer cottage in Newport and winging off to a ski weekend in Gtsaad he "forgot" a mere $60,000 financial commitment, folks might buy it.
But is the owner of "First Class Pawn & Jewelry" in Las Vegas' notably seedy downtown really in that same economic class?
Perhaps Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack has not intentionally set out to do inappropriate, secret political favors for associates who have "loaned" him tens of thousands of dollars.
Unfortunately, to further that claim, it appears Mr. Mack -- who ran for the Council on the strength of his acumen as a successful businessman -- may have to enter the somewhat uncomfortable alternative plea that he is in fact a miserable businessman who needed to borrow tens of thousands of dollars at high rates to keep his First Class Pawn & Jewelry out of hock last year, but then just couldn't seem to remember (a few months later) whether that $60,000 "loan" had ever been paid off.
So far, exasperated voters can't even award Councilman Mack points for "style."
Prominent East Coast car dealer John Staluppi thought he was all set to receive city site approval for a Nissan dealership he proposes to place across Rancho Drive from the Santa Fe Station. The city staff and Planning Commission had green-lighted the idea, and Mr. Staluppi had spent $200,000 on site preparation. He probably figured the $2,000 he donated to Mr. Mack's campaign this winter couldn't hurt.
Of course, it turns out Joe Scala, who would prefer that all new car dealerships in the northwest be sited under the umbrella of his proposed Courtesy Automotive Group "auto mall" a little further up the road, had donated $10,000 to Mr. Mack's record-setting $493,000 campaign chest (via his two existing auto dealerships.)
Needless to say, Mr. Mack stepped in and nixed the low bidder's Rancho Drive Nissan dealership. First, he saw to it that the City Council voted 5-0 to reject Mr. Staluppi's plan to commit his land on Rancho Drive to a perfectly legal use. Then, he actually introducing an ordinance which would limit future car dealerships to Mr. Scala's Route 95 location.
But it now turns out Mr. Mack may have had more than a mere $10,000 "campaign contribution" on his mind. Last summer, it turns out, Mr. Mack was in discussions with Mr. Scala about a possible business partnership. He asked Mr. Scala to make him a short-term, high-interest "bridge loan" of $60,000 to help tide him over, given that (he now contends) he'd been ignoring his pawn shop business in the interest of politics, allowing debts there to mount up.
Mr. Mack failed to identify this loan as a possible conflict of interest when he urged Mr. Staluppi to seek space for his new dealership from Mr. Scala ... and then nixed Mr. Staluppi's enterprise entirely when Mr. Staluppi balked and chose the competing location.
Why this failure to disclose? Mr. Mack says he forgot he still owed the money ... even though financial disclosure forms he filed with the City Clerk's office Feb. 12 listed his debt to Mr. Scala's Peoples Real Estate Investment LLC, right there in black and white.
"Because I thought the loan had been retired, I didn't think I had a conflict," Mr. Mack now asserts.
Oh, good one. Does Mr. Mack now believe he has a fairy godmother who goes about repaying his six-digit loans without telling him? Or does he believe that -- so long as he uses the power of his office to quash the plans of any would-be competitor of a fellow like Mr. Scala's -- $60,000 "loans" to city councilmen never have to be repaid, at all?
For that matter, are we supposed to believe Mr. Mack wouldn't want to stay on the good side of a fellow who's proved willing to loan him $60,000 whenever he needs it (without all the troublesome paperwork and collateral the pesky old banks can require) ... a fellow so big-hearted he doesn't even call up to remind the councilman when nine months have elapsed and he hasn't so much as made an interest payment?
At this point, Mr. Staluppi has taken the city's last-minute rejection of his Nissan dealership to court. Taxpayers will almost certainly end up paying his attorneys fees ... though that bill should really go to Mr. Mack. In fact, we'll be lucky if the city doesn't end up having to promise Mr. Staluppi free sewer and water for life, tossing in an unlimited gaming license and a bordello permit, to squeak out of this one.
The city and state ethics boards are reportedly considering ethics complaints brought before them on this matter.
Good. Both ethics boards should put down their crack pipes and take this one seriously, for a change. There's already a widespread national perception that the planning and zoning (not to mention eminent domain) process in Las Vegas is "for sale." Do we really want to shrug off such a corrosion of common decency and fair play? Shall we just have our elected officeholders publish their bribe schedules and credit card call-in lines next to the sports book odds in the Thursday newspaper?
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
