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A bombshell with political and substantive shrapnel

Jon Ralston
Jon Ralston
Opinion
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Sometimes things are not what they seem. And sometimes, they are.

So which one is this blockbuster piece by Anjeanette Damon for ProPublica, which we proudly co-published as it raises serious questions about how and why a politically connected COVID testing company got fast-tracked and licensed in Nevada and then proved to be disastrously incompetent? (I could probably build a COVID test at home that would be more accurate than theirs was at UNR.)

Is this what it seems – juice triumphed over vetting – or perhaps something more politically benign – carelessness in the time of COVID? Either way, this is a catastrophe still unfurling. We at The Indy are going to try our best to find out more, piggybacking on Damon’s detailed reporting.

I hope you all read our initial follow-up to the ProPublica piece. There are still many unanswered questions, but let’s get to what we do know about what happened with a company tied to Peter Palivos, whose name is well known in political circles here and whose sons got the contract. 

First, obviously Team Sisolak sees this as a political problem; that’s not rocket science. So going on offense against the testing company, Northshore, makes sense, painting it as the villain even though it was licensed by the state and infiltrated various local jurisdictions.

The governor’s team put together a statement of outrage and innocence along with a timeline (that turned out to have a key piece of inaccurate info that we, alas, repeated – and then corrected.) This is the key part, politically at least:

“To reiterate, the Governor never had any conversations with Peter Palivos or his children about Northshore or any of its operations. The Governor’s Chief of Staff Yvanna Cancela never had conversations with Peter Palivos about Northshore or any of its operations. The Governor was never involved in expediting Northshore’s licensing process and he never directed his staff to expedite their licensing. Neither the Governor nor his staff were involved in any way in Northshore’s independent contracts with local entities.”

The administration’s case is pretty simple: We had no way of knowing they were incompetent, and when we found out, we shut them down. This is true (backed up by the public record we have to date), as far as it goes. Their denials notwithstanding, the question of what did Gov. Steve Sisolak – or his top aides – know and when did they know it is critical here. And the blind trust put in Mike Willden, a former gubernatorial chief of staff and one of the most respected state employees in history, is critical here, too. 

Chiefs of staff have a thousand things going on every day, so when Cancela heard from Willden, whom she surely dealt with as a state senator, and during a time when more testing was needed, she simply passed on the request to those she knew were experts and could facilitate for Willden. That is not surprising, as far as it goes. 

But.

If she had known this was connected to Palivos, a sometimes-gubernatorial pal whom some staffers around Sisolak have never trusted, would Cancela have acted differently? You would think so, right? (Palivos has tried to sell the governor and state officials on other health care “ideas,” so I find it hard to believe he did not try to talk to Sisolak or someone close to him about this one, which involved his sons.)

But.

Willden is a lobbyist now, not working on behalf of the state. Should that have raised red flags right away? Should he have identified Northshore and the Palivos connection to Cancela when he reached out? Should questions have been asked OF him right away? Maybe.

Team Sisolak’s high dudgeon after the fact – that is, after Damon’s story was published and after we began pressing with follow-up questions – is a bit hard to take. However you look at it, they have known for some time this is a calamity in the making; why not say something before Damon did?

Whatever fault lies with the administration – that is, outside of what political opportunists will now say, some of them utter hypocrites who are either virus deniers or blessed with 20-20 hindsight – Sisolak’s real problem here is Palivos. If his sons were not involved, this story would have been much different – and no one’s spidey sense would be tingling right now. 

So be it. 

That this company also was involved in Henderson, where Palivos acts as a de facto maître d’ for Mayor Debra March, who is running for lieutenant governor, is another nugget that arouses suspicion. Maybe there is smoke and not fire there, too. Maybe.

The public doesn’t know who Palivos is. He is a convicted felon from Chicago who came to Nevada about 15 years ago, telling everyone who would listen that he was set up. He has tried to ingratiate himself in political circles while spreading at least $120,000 in campaign cash around during the last decade. He has wined and dined prominent public officials, sends photos  of himself with them around the state as a selling point and has tried to get governments to buy into various “ideas” he has.

Those around Sisolak know all of this and some have actively tried to shield the governor from his entreaties. All the public sees – and this will be reinforced with many gross rating points this summer and fall – is a guy close to the governor had his family get a lucrative contract that turned out to be a travesty. So, yes, that’s a political problem.

But let’s not lose sight of this, no matter who is ultimately at fault (or not): People surely died because of the huge percentage of false negatives. Someone is going to find those families whose loved ones died and either interview them or put them in TV ads. Or both. That’s par for the course.

No matter the political consequences of all of this, though, the end result is exactly what it seems: A tragedy.

(A version of this column first appeared in Flash, the CEO’s morning newsletter.)

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