A judge on Wednesday ordered Clark County to provide the Las Vegas Review-Journal unredacted copies of bid evaluations after the news organization sued the county for records related to a fired official whose wife’s company was included in a lucrative contract.
Though District Judge Bita Yeager’s decision will allow the Review-Journal to see the previously redacted names of the people who evaluated bids for projects at issue, other information remains secret, at least for now.
She has ordered the county to begin providing her with additional disputed records for review.
The Review-Journal sued the county in March, seeking to require the government to release records tied to its investigation of Jimmy Floyd, the now-fired head of the county’s construction management division, “and to the process that allowed lucrative construction management contracts to be awarded to Mr. Floyd’s wife.”
County officials have refused to hand over key records that the Review-Journal wants, more than a year after the news organization requested them, claiming they are confidential personnel records.
Without those records, questions remain unanswered about how a firm owned by Floyd’s wife, Raquel, stood to make $1.5 million managing construction for the 215 Beltway & Summerlin Park Interchange Project as part of a team awarded a larger contract in a bidding process managed by Floyd.
As of early 2025, her company had been paid $442,200 as a subcontractor on county construction management projects.
“The public has a right to know why Clark County did not have systems in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening,” said Review-Journal lawyer Colleen McCarty. “It has a right to know whether Jimmy Floyd was the only person or whether there were others who were supporting the malfeasance. The public has a right to know: Was it really just $1.5 million, or was there perhaps more? The public has a right to know: Were there other high-level managers and county officials who knew that these funds were going to Jimmy Floyd’s wife’s firm or not?”
Scott Davis, an attorney for the county, argued that the county had an ordinance stating that employee discipline and related information is confidential.
“If that ordinance is a law, then game over,” he said. “We don’t have to produce it.”
He then argued that the ordinance was law, as that term is used in the public records act.
He said the county had produced over 800 pages of records and was only withholding what he said were personnel records.
The judge seemed skeptical.
“I don’t know if I agree with you on that, but keep going,” Yeager told Davis.
McCarty said the 800 pages of records already produced were “largely inapplicable.” And she argued that the ordinance cited by Davis did not entitle the county to sidestep state public records law.
“They’re withholding the information that would allow the public to understand what happened here, and our public records act provides for that accountability,” she said.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
