On February 11, 2010, I wrote the following piece titled Plantation Politics in Nevada Assembly District 7 which ignited a bit of a firestorm and remains one of the most read pieces of the year:

http://www.watchdogwag.com/?p=8503

His audacity is magnificent as he thumbs his nose at the DA, the AG, and the FBI & US Attorney!

I stand by what I wrote, but I had to pull my punches a bit regarding Assemblyman Morse Arberry’s very sweet post-term limits deal that robbed UNLV of a daycare placement contract and gave it to the Urban League here–now conveniently headed up by–well, I’ll be damned!–Morse Arberry!

In the piece, I left hanging this circumstance because I couldn’t confirm what I knew to be true then:

‘…Just how this current Arberry-greased daycare contract change of heart came about is going to immediately trigger the fed’s interest!

I would be very interested to see where the Urban League’s Steven Brooks ends up, wouldn’t you?…’

Well, now we all know!

On Friday March 12, 2010, The Urban League’s former chair, Steven Brooks, filed for Assembly District 19; the term limited seat of current holder, Jerry Claborn.

Mr Brooks had registered into AD19 effective October 22, 2009 after having lived very nicely in AD22, and before that he lived and AD12.  The only other registered person at his current address is a 20 year old woman of another name who may be related to the 38 year old Brooks because he was registered there before too before his AD12 migration.

Then as the very curious time-line progressed, came this:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/06/once-troubled-urban-league-bests-unlv-child-care-s/

Doesn’t it look like the quid pro quo for Arberry being appointed to chair the Urban League was a greased shot at an Assembly seat for the then outgoing Steve Brooks who conveniently moved into (with family?) AD19 in October of 2009 at 37 years old?

And this is no ordinary shot that anyone else could take; it bears the full weight of Lindsey Jydstrup and the Nevada Assembly Caucus she directs and the caucus’s 2010 recruiting committee that includes assumed Speaker-to-be John Oceguera, Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, and Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick and others.

Mr Brooks is the secretly anointed candidate of the caucus for the AD19 seat and it’s not entirely clear if he really lives there or is just using the address to carpetbag back into the district.

Communications in the time period between May of 2009 which eventually included the troubled Urban League’s shake up and Brooks’ apparently moving back into AD19, through last Friday afternoon’s filing of Brooks, are likely to show a conspiracy to use the public’s money to enrich Arberry by stealing away the UNLV contract and then to improperly compensate Brooks to act as Arberry’s de-facto continued voice in the Nevada Assembly despite his being termed out in his own district, AD07.

Caucus Director, Ms Jydstrup, herself a most curious person in the background whose own compensation schemes have her receiving money from the individual Assembly members and then from the caucus itself, but she has never filed a CCE, or registered as a lobbyist or player in Nevada that I can find.

Ms Jydstrup is listed on many individual CCE’s of Assembly Caucus members over recent years and Mr Brooks is expected to share in the largesse that she controls for the Dems’ Assembly Caucus efforts.

Jydstrup is a Barbara Buckley protégé who has controlled enormous amounts of money and has seemingly never bothered to report to anyone where and to whom those monies went to, much less her own compensation or cut.

She doesn’t believe it’s anybody’s business.

It’s all very neat and tidy too and Arberry and Brooks were confident that no one would notice that this alleged collusion and conspiracy would draw attention and that it would be very easy to connect the dots and trace emails, phone calls, and money movements for their current scheme.

The final piece of the puzzle came together with Steve Brooks’ filing for office last Friday.

The AD19 seat is Steven Brooks’ 30 pieces of silver payment to grease the way for the Arberry/Urban League effectively stolen contract from UNLV.

UNLV’s apparent trepidation challenging Arberry is understandable given that he chairs the powerful Ways and Means Committee and that his personal poison seeps into everything the legislature does.

The Nevada Welfare and Supportive Services Division apparently did not seek advice and consent from the Attorney General’s office either and just went along with the scheme and entered into negotiations with Arberry and the very troubled Urban League to the detriment of UNLV’s longstanding contract under their Special Education program.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger and his public corruption prosecutors apparently have no interest, neither does Metro’s investigation unit regarding public corruption.

This being a state matter involving millions of contracted public dollars would also place this squarely in the lap of Catherine Cortez-Masto’s office, but apparently she is either unaware of what occurred over the last year concluding last Friday, or she doesn’t care.

That would leave the FBI and the office of the US Attorney as Nevada taxpayers’ last best hope to investigate these scoundrels who conspired to enrich themselves at the expense of UNLV and Nevada taxpayers.

Like the ‘Pigpen’ character in Charlie Brown, Assemblyman Morse Arberry has always had clouds of pocket-stuffing dust and the debris of his intense corruption swirling around him and now that he should be in the sites of state and federal law enforcement with his latest scheme; he seems to be getting yet another pass, doesn’t he?

Steven Brooks reeks of those same odors and should be a ‘person of interest’ in any investigation given how willingly he gave up his ‘leadership’ of the Urban League and its notorious troubles to Morse Arberry, and the payment of the AD19 opportunity he received from the Nevada Assembly Caucus in return!

Mr Brooks is also a highly paid ‘liaison’ of the Las Vegas City Council.  ‘Liaison’ to exactly what when  layoffs and budget cuts dominate headlines, is yet another question in this sorted story of corrupted people pocketing public money.

It just gets curiouser and curiouser; questions just beget more and more questions!

Will anyone open an investigation into Morse Arberry and Steven Brooks, or is this just another case in which none of them have any interest at all?

Is it any wonder the public is so cynical when they won’t investigate what’s right in front of their own noses?

Will someone look into this most curious and profitable past year in the lives of Morse Arberry and Steven Brooks?

Someone?  Anyone?

Mike Zahara
03182010
www.WatchdogWag.com