Think only baseball has been juiced? Corruption leaves valley covered in asterisks

Sports fans are now viewing the past two decades as baseball’s “asterisk era.”

While many can easily write off Barry Bonds’ home run records, others are wondering whether the New York Yankees’ World Series titles should be starred with a mark because of the admitted use of human growth hormone by pitching star Andy Pettitte.

Fans knew he threw left, occasionally batted left and still had that Louisiana drawl when he did interviews in the Bronx. Now his stats have a black mark that might also be affixed to former teammate and future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens. Did the steroid-denying ace earn those Cy Young awards fairly?

Questions like these will continue to fuel sports talk radio and water cooler discussions, but local residents should also be having similar chats about those who were elected to serve them.

County zoning and land-use policies, municipal franchises and contracts and labor deals from the past decade should all pretty much be viewed in a similar way.

The public corruption trials that have sent four former Clark County commissioners to federal prison, as well as ongoing investigations into two other former commissioners, have slapped a giant asterisk on all local government decisions.

Of course not all of Pettitte’s Yankee teammates were juicing at the time of their multiple world championships. And, of course, most public servants are not corrupt.

But with so much evidence to suggest the public was deprived of honest services in many instances, it’s perfectly legitimate to view each vote by those in question as questionable.

In theory, there could be an asterisk from your front door to your curbside. An asterisk could follow you along your commute to your office and the local drugstore.

Just taking the facts we know about those who have been found guilty, or have admitted guilt, paints a scary picture of the valley in which we live.

Let’s say you live in a home built by Jim Rhodes. How many deals did he strike under the table with his commissioner-cum-employee, Erin Kenny?

It’s safe to say the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions may have greased the wheels of the county planning bureaucracy, but was there more going on, beyond Kenny’s hefty “consulting” salary?

You might just be living in a home with an asterisk.

And when you set out your garbage, you might question whether that’s got a big asterisk. Did Republic Services honestly earn its decades-long monopolies simply because it offered low rates for twice-weekly residential pickup?

And depending where you work, there could easily be an asterisk hanging in the main lobby.

Kenny suggested the infamous Spring Valley casino vote wasn’t pure when she alleged she received cash payments from the company. What about everything else Triple 5 developed, from Boca Park to the Montecito Town Center?

We know, based on testimony, that the CVS Pharmacy in Spring Valley was juiced in. But what about your neighborhood drugstore or grocer or physician’s office?

It’s easy to imagine just about any part of your daily routine getting touched by this asterisk.

Police are still trying to figure out just how unethical former Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates was. And former Commissioner Lynette Boggs is fighting charges that could send her to prison.

Was Boggs equally dishonest when she served on the Las Vegas City Council?

What about all those votes from Councilman Michael Mack before he declined to seek re-election? What about everything sponsored back in the days of Janet Moncrief, or FBI friend Michael McDonald, or even Frank Hawkins and his current developments?

Have the citizens of West Las Vegas ever had asterisk-free service?

Should every government decision rendered by a public employee serving in the Legislature get an asterisk?

What about every vote taken affecting the top donors in the gaming industry? And is there an asterisk on justice as well? The Los Angeles Times, in its 2006 investigative series on the Clark County judiciary, seemed to think so.

We know there’s a big asterisk on the U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada, as elsewhere, but where else will we find them? How far will Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid go to block planned coal-fired power plants, for example?

With so many local decisions already marked for scrutiny, it’s fair to view local government the same way sports fans are questioning baseball.

Contact Erin Neff at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.