Lavish spending by the Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority
Having worked 16 years in the corporate executive office environment, I laughed myself silly reading your April 2 front-page article on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. I’ve read more reasons justifying outrageous and outlandish spending of corporate monies than I care to remember.
Three important things to remember: The more verbose the reason for the expenditure, the less likely it is true; if a politician of any level is involved, you can pretty much bank on the fact that pay-to-play is also involved; and wealthy people and politicians rarely spend their own money if taxpayer or corporate funds are available for use.
The real reason for spending $50,000 at Tiffanys for rings and bracelets is probably not the advertisement value of having employees wear the jewelry. It is much more likely that the executives didn’t want to spend their own money on presents for their employees, so they used taxpayer money instead.
When taxpayer funds are used to purchase gifts, concert tickets, airline travel, hotels and grossly overpriced alcohol and food for anyone who decides your salary and yearly bonus, it’s called quid pro quo and there are legal ramifications. It’s time for an independent audit of all the authority’s expenditures.
