KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasExclusive: Boggs-McDonald's Ethics Woes
(Sept. 23) -- Ethics charges and counter charges are flying at several levels of Nevada government. First, a former city councilwoman who has publicly campaigned on ethics issues is having her own ethical standards questioned. Second, state lawmakers say Lynette Boggs-McDonald asked them to use their positions to help her husband.
Former Councilwoman Lynette Boggs-McDonald, who now serves as a Clark County Commissioner, has often been out in front on ethics issues. While at the city, she often argued public employees should not be allowed to serve as legislators because it is an inherent conflict. Ironically, two lawmakers who previously worked for the city say they were asked to do special favors for Boggs-McDonald and her husband.
Las Vegas Assemblyman, Wendell Williams said, "Being on her high horse in public to say we shouldn't serve, to go around when no one is looking and watching, and ask me to do these things for her is unethical itself."
Former city employee and longtime assemblyman, Wendell Williams thinks it is hypocritical for Lynette Boggs-McDonald to have crusaded against public employees serving in the legislature since, in his words, she relentlessly asked him for legislative favors.
During last year's legislative session, Steve McDonald, the husband of the councilwoman, worked for the State Treasurer's office. That office introduced a bill that would have eliminated his job, possibly because there was bad blood between McDonald and his boss, the treasurer.
Williams says he was asked by Boggs-McDonald to skewer the treasurer's office during official hearings to send a message about her husband's job. "If' I'm working as an employee of the City of Las Vegas and my boss, in essence, Lynette Boggs-McDonald is requesting that I ask these questions to kill this bill to protect her husband, what do I do?"
Wendall Williams says he did as he was told, and minutes from legislative meetings show he pounded the treasurer's office with hours of tough questions, questions that he says were written by Steve McDonald and delivered to Williams in front of witnesses. Williams claims to have received numerous phone calls from the councilwoman in preparation for the grilling.
Boggs-McDonald denies ever asking Williams for help on any personal or legislative issues and says Williams and her husband have known each other for years. Any phone contact she had with Williams, she says, was likely just to relay messages.
"Assemblyman Williams would often call me to track down my husband and never had the cell phone number. Often I was like Ma Bell, transferring messages back and forth. But I don't know what conversations they had between them. My husband never talked to me about conversations he had with the assemblyman," Boggs-McDonald said.
An e-mail obtained and verified by the I-Team was sent from Boggs-McDonald's executive assistant at City Hall to Wendall Williams requesting Williams' immediate attention in contacting Steve McDonald.
Lynette Boggs-McDonald said, "All I can decipher is that it was a telephone tag situation where Wendell was calling me to call my husband and my husband tried to get a hold of him unsuccessfully.
Williams says all this phone tag stuff simply isn't true, and that he wasn't exactly hard to find at the legislature if someone wanted to call him. Assemblyman Morse Arberry, also a former city employee, says he was contacted by the councilwoman to see if he would help save her husband's job as well.
"I don't know why he would say that. I'm grasping at straws why he would say it," Boggs-McDonald replied.
Boggs-McDonald says that Assemblyman Arberry has also known her husband for years but that she never personally asked Arberry for any help. The I-Team asked the state treasurer whether there had ever been any perceived interference from the councilwoman or anyone else on her behalf. We were told the treasurer is quote, "unable to respond to this question" and we were referred to the Attorney General's office.
The I-Team has filed a formal request for all city phone records involving calls between the office of Boggs-McDonald and that of Assemblymen Williams and Arberry. That request is being processed. It should also be noted that following last year's legislative session, Steve McDonald was fired from his job at the State Treasurer's office.
