JACKSON - In 1996, Las Vegas-based Mirage Resorts Inc. threatened to cancel plans to build a $500 million casino and hotel at Biloxi if Secretary of State Eric Clark didn't let them take a chunk of state coastal tidelands for their massive Mississippi investment.
Clark, they thought, must be some Mississippi cornpone official they could bamboozle into giving them the tideland site they wanted.
At the risk of losing the casino and its 3,500 jobs, Clark stood his ground, insisting the proposed location encroached on protected water bottoms.
Mirage backed down, agreeing to a compromise land swap to comply with the wetland line set by Clark as necessary for the state interest.
Later, Clark got the big Las Vegas gaming operator to pony up $1.9 million to seal the lease agreement. At a ceremony launching the project, the president of the casino company described Clark as a "very tough negotiator."
But last week, Clark's tideland lease discretionary power was almost stripped from him by a bill that barely escaped being rubber-stamped by the state Senate.
Earlier, the Senate Ports and Marine Resources Committee in a jumped-up meeting had by a 3-2 vote approved a bill sponsored by Sen. Tommy Robertson, R-Moss Point, to remove the secretary of state's discretionary authority to negotiate tideland leases.
It appeared that the skids were greased to pass the bill in the Republican-controlled Senate since Sen. Tommy Gollott, D-Biloxi, chairman of the reporting committee, had indicated he would stand aside and let Robertson handle the bill on the floor.
Suddenly at week's end, however, the decision was made to shelve the bill after Clark blasted the measure as having been pushed by casinos and endangering the state's chances to keep Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi.
(The Keesler angle arises from the fact that one Biloxi casino had built its hotel two stories higher than what Keesler considers a safe height for nearby buildings.)
Clark had charged that casino lobbyists were trying to "dictate" terms on how the state can manage its coastal tidelands.
In his management of state tidelands, Clark contended he has not held back capital investment, adding that there has been $1.25 billion invested along the coast during his watch.
However, Clark is not without his critics in Mississippi's multibillion-dollar gaming industry for what some say is his "dictator-like" manner in administering leases on state wetlands.
Some critics say Clark, who was the prime mover in passage of the 2003 Administrative Procedures Act requiring state agencies to post and file with his office their procedural rules, himself fails to follow uniform standards in awarding tideland leases.
Others contend that Clark, who is devoutly religious, tends too much to bring his personal spiritual beliefs into the state governmental arena when gaming industry representatives are making their case for tidelands leases.
Prior to the Robertson bill being suddenly shelved last week, Senate leaders were oddly hit with a barrage of e-mails from religious fundamentalist Donald E. Wildmon, head of the Tupelo-based American Family Association, opposing the bill.
Some senators observed that Wildmon's sudden interest in tidelands leasing legislation was totally out of character for the fundamentalist organization. which ordinarily is only concerned with family values issues.
The motives of Robertson, sponsor of the Senate bill to strip Clark of his tidelands leasing discretionary powers, however, must be viewed as highly suspect.
Robertson in the past has been an arch foe of Clark's legislative initiatives, especially campaign finance reform, and is known to have been cozy with casino interests.
The 48-year-old Moss Point lawmaker has twice been charged in recent years with drunk driving. In 1997 he pleaded guilty to a DUI arrest in Biloxi after being caught driving with a blood alcohol level nearly twice the then-legal 0.10 percent
Still pending is a DUI charge from his arrest by Ole Miss campus police in a late-night incident last Sept. 27 in the Alumni House parking lot following the Ole Miss-Texas Tech game.
No details have been released in police reports as to the events leading up to Robertson being arrested by the campus officers for DUI. Robertson had been booked on the charge at 12:40 a.m. Sept. 28 at the Lafayette County courthouse in an affidavit which also shows an accident was involved.
Robertson was initially slated to be arraigned in Lafayette County Justice Court on the DUI charge Oct.14 but was granted a continuance after his attorney entered an innocent plea for him. Twice since then, Robertson's case has been postponed and now is set immediately after the scheduled May 9 adjournment of the Legislature.
The Moss Point lawmaker is challenging the Ole Miss drunk-driving charge, hanging his hat on the fact he was given no "admissible" blood-alcohol test. A copy of his DUI arrest ticket does not indicate a percentage of his alcohol concentration.
