Dina Titus Launches "Taking You For A Ride" Web Site On Las Vegas Monorail
Dina Titus Launches "Taking You For A Ride" Web Site On Las Vegas Monorail
July 20, 2006
LAS VEGAS - With the latest ridership figures showing the Las Vegas Monorail hurtling toward bankruptcy and a possible taxpayer bailout, Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Dina Titus today unveiled a web site detailing how opponent Jim Gibson cashed in on the failing monorail.
Dina Titus also demanded that Jim Gibson explain to Nevada voters exactly how much he made as a lawyer who helped set up the $650 million in state-issued bonds for the monorail, as a board member of the Las Vegas Monorail Company and as chief executive officer of the monorail management company.
"We've determined that Jim Gibson made more than $500,000 off this boondoggle masquerading as a public project," Dina Titus said. "Jim Gibson needs to come clean and disclose all the legal fees he collected, how much he made as a board member and what he collected in bonuses as parts of the monorail were falling onto the streets below."
"The Las Vegas Monorail already has cost us millions in lost sales and property tax revenues, and ultimately taxpayers could be asked to bail it out," Dina Titus said. "Jim Gibson needs to justify how he can pocket all the money he made while taxpayers were subsidizing a failed project that benefited the mayor and a few of his friends."
The "Jim Gibson and the Las Vegas Monorail Taking You for a Ride" web site, www.monorailjim.com, provides the following details of Jim Gibson's monorail compensation:
? $209,323 in annual salary in 2004 as CEO of Transit Systems Management, the monorail operating company.
? A share of $191,732 in executive "extra compensation" in 2004.
? A raise in Gibson's CEO salary to $324,000 in 2005.
? Up to $80,000 per year as a member of the monorail's Board of Directors, while collecting $42,250 per year as mayor of Henderson.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today on the monorail: "Ridership in the first half of 2006 plunged nearly 30 percent from already weak passenger counts last year " It also said the monorail collected about $90,000 in daily fares, well below the $123,000 per day the monorail needs to break even. The monorail has been operating on cash reserves from $650 million in tax-exempt bonds issued by the state in 2000 to build the monorail. Jim Gibson's law firm helped secure those bonds and presumably received an undisclosed portion of $31.6 million in bond proceeds set aside for "costs of issuance," including bond counsel. If the monorail defaults on the bonds, now in "junk status," bondholders will be responsible for the losses. But the Las Vegas Monorail Company also could ask taxpayers for a bailout rather than allow bondholders to foreclose on the monorail.
"We don't know how much Jim Gibson received for setting up this train that drains," Dina Titus said. "But whatever it was, maybe he ought to think about giving it back."
http://www.dinatitus.com/index.php?section=news&id=774