There are 60 million reasons why Paul Faulkner, not Clark County, was right

Clark County coffers dipped nearly $60 million this month, after the money was wired to the bonding company for AF Construction owner Paul Faulkner. His dealings with the county are over, ending the 68-year-old contractor's eight-year nightmare.

He's watched his reputation suffer. He lost his bonding capacity during his legal clashes with the county and lost out on other jobs. And now he's trying to rebuild his company in the worst of times for contractors.

AF Construction built the $93 million expansion of the Clark County Detention Center and was sued by the county on claims he overbilled. The case was settled in his favor for $8.4 million, which includes interest.

Faulkner also built the $185 million Regional Justice Center and was sued again by the county. Arbitrators decided the county bore the brunt of the responsibility for delays and cost overruns. The settlement cost the county $51.2 million.

All in all, with the litigation settlements, interest, legal fees and other costs, the expense to sue AF Construction -- and lose -- tallies more than $95 million.

County officials can disagree all they want with the scathing 195-page decision by three arbitrators who heard 10 weeks of testimony about the justice center. But Faulkner and his bonding company, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., were the ones who were paid. That makes him the winner.

In his first interview over his conflicts with the county, Faulkner described in detail what went wrong with both the jail expansion and the justice center, how lack of construction experience by one county official and a personality conflict with another took a bad situation and made it worse. The county's decision to penny-pinch created even more problems. The arbitrators did find fault with AF Construction, but they found vastly more fault with Clark County.

County commissioners concede that poor management on the county's part was to blame but refuse to discuss individuals by name.

"It was not managed well, but let's not cast aspersions on anybody," Commission Chairman Rory Reid said.

The arbitration decision was less diplomatic, pointing to the lack of experience on construction projects by former Assistant County Manager Mike Alastuey and the strong-willed personality of Aviation Director Randy Walker, who replaced Alastuey as the county's manager on the project in 2002.

Faulkner said when he first met with Walker to discuss problems, Walker was belligerent and declared: "I will put you out of business, and you'll never do another job in Clark County."

Faulkner's consultant at the time, Terry Murphy, was at the meeting and had the same recollection of Walker's comment.

When I asked Walker whether he could put the statement in context, he denied saying it.

"I don't believe that comment ever happened. Even if I thought it, I'm not dumb enough to say it that way. ... That doesn't even sound like me."

Jim Wilde, the retired senior project manager for Bechtel Corp. at McCarran International Airport, was at the meeting, too.

Wilde said, "I don't think he said it either. I don't remember it happening."

You'll have to judge for yourself whom you believe, the two who heard it as a threat and were shocked, or the two who don't remember an inflammatory statement. (I keep asking: Why would Faulkner and Murphy make it up?)

And it does sound like Walker. When he was put in charge of overseeing finishing the jail and the justice center, he said he was a dictator and would run the operation as a dictatorship. He did exactly that. Arbitrators said Walker's hard-nosed approach with AF Construction drove up costs.

Faulkner lost the media war because his attorneys told him not to speak. But Walker had no such restrictions and told reporters about shoddy workmanship and other problems.

"He'd take every little crack and turn it into the Grand Canyon," Faulkner said.

Faulkner, who came to Las Vegas from New York in 1972 to work in construction, started AF Construction in 1997 and now has to resurrect both his business and his reputation.

In Monday's column, read about how county commissioners cheered a $1.5 million reduction in the settlement, saying almost nothing about the reasons behind the nearly $60 million payout.

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/.