Gibbons backs contract

Las Vegas political columnist Jon Ralston last week reported an interesting sequence of events.

He wrote that Sierra Nevada Corp. announced on Aug. 5 last year that it had received an $11 million state contract to build solar facilities at a National Guard armory. And recently Gov. Jim Gibbons reported on a campaign disclosure form that on Aug. 6 he had received $30,000 from Sierra Nevada owners and its political action committee.

The date on the company’s online news release announcing the contract was later changed to Sept. 24, but not before Ralston had printed out the original release dated Aug. 5.

Gibbons’ office said the governor “was unaware of the contribution” when he voted as a member of the Nevada Board of Examiners to approve the contract to Sierra Nevada. But Ralston points out that at the time of the vote, the $30,000 made up 92 percent of the governor’s entire campaign treasury of $32,525 and questioned whether he could be that unaware of who provided the bulk of his campaign money.

When he was a member of the U.S. House, Gibbons aided Sierra Nevada Corp. in obtaining federal contracts.