Payment of sign debt in 1996 raises another question of Robinson

Sign company owner Mark Peplowski remembers it vividly. North Las Vegas City Councilman William Robinson and developer Randy Black Sr. don't remember it at all. Yet somehow in 1996, the councilman's $2,650 sign debt to Peplowski was paid off by Black.

This oddity is unrelated to the FBI investigation into Robinson in 1993 and 1994, yet Peplowski contends it shows a pattern of questionable behavior by the councilman who hopes to become mayor of North Las Vegas on June 2.

Peplowski, owner of Signs-n-Such and a political science instructor at the College of Southern Nevada, provided signs for Robinson in his 1995 election. After Robinson won, he didn't pay Peplowski for the last month's rental of signs. So Peplowski sued the councilman in small claims court on Jan. 11, 1996, asking for the debt, interest and court costs for a total of $3,145.

Soon after, Black called Peplowski twice, citing the reason for the calls as "Wm. Robinson," according to the logs Peplowski found after digging through his old files.

A Jan. 29, 1996, letter from Black, copied to Robinson, is short. "Per our phone conversation, please find enclosed a check for $500. I am interested in resolving the rest of Councilman William Robinson's debt. Please indicate what payment schedule you would take, and also the exact balance."

The debt was paid by the time the trial was to begin April 1, 1996. Peplowski wrote Las Vegas Justice Court asking the case be dismissed "as the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties."

Peplowski remembers picking up a check from Black. His recollection is that Black gave him the check and said, "We've got to take care of our friends."

Black doesn't remember paying for Robinson's signs or meeting with Peplowski. He doesn't remember Robinson asking him to pay a debt for him, although he acknowledged he wouldn't pay Robinson's bill without being asked.

The payment could be a post-election campaign contribution except for one problem: Campaign contribution reports for 1996 do not show any contributions by Black that year.

"Today's the first time anyone in the campaign was aware that money was paid," Robinson's campaign manager, Jim Ferrence, said Tuesday. Ferrence said Robinson doesn't recall asking Black to pay the bill and Robinson had no intention of paying Peplowski because "he had a serious issue with the service."

One teeny flaw in logic: If Robinson didn't ask Black to pay his delinquent sign bill, why would Black do it? And why would the developer copy to Robinson his polite letter to Peplowski arranging to pay the entire debt?

Then Ferrence said it was nothing more than a campaign contribution that wasn't reported properly. "If there's a paperwork snafu, we take full responsibility," Ferrence said. An amended report listing Black's payments as an in-kind campaign contribution would be filed.

Asking a supporter to pay a bill and not disclosing it publicly is Robinson's problem, not Black's. Individual contributors have no legal requirement to disclose their contributions under Nevada law.

However, the councilman's failure to report Black's payment 13 years ago smells. And while Robinson was never charged, there's also a stench that hovers over the FBI investigation 15 years ago, when Robinson allegedly accepted about $6,000 from an undercover FBI agent posing as a drug dealer.

Peplowski said, and I agree, "It looks like a very bad pattern of conduct."

Records show Black's contributions to Robinson in 1995 and 1999 were $500 each, far less than the $3,000 sign debt. Yet Black said Robinson "never put the pinch on me."

Black's name surfaced in the trial of former Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey because, when asked, he donated money to help her grandson go to ski school. No wrongdoing was alleged on his part. Black rejected my suggestion that he viewed the payments to help Kincaid-Chauncey's grandson and Robinson as simply the cost of doing business. He said he supported good candidates.

Something's amiss with a system that allows some politicians to treat contributors like they're human ATMs. Something's amiss when campaign finance reports are filled out so haphazardly. And something's amiss that Nevada legislators do nothing to fix these miserable reports. All they'd have to do is copy the federal reports, which account for money in and money out.

How tough would that be?

Too tough, apparently.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.