hollywood billionaire

Chapter 310 Everything is Political

Like every city in the world that has basic requirements for public safety, holding non-conventional outdoor events in Las Vegas, regardless of the category, as long as the number of participants exceeds 100, requires the erection of temporary buildings. Temporary water and electricity, providing alcohol consumption, involving suppliers, or occupying public roads, any of the above six items needs to apply to the city government and be reviewed by the relevant city departments and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department approve.

It sounds simple, but in practice it is quite cumbersome. First, Hanshine needs to fill out a special event permit application form, which includes seventeen categories of key information: event date and duration, description of event content, total number of expected spectators and other participants, complete identification The site plan of each functional area, the configuration of disabled facilities in the venue, the number of event suppliers and the specific locations where suppliers place their booths, the parking plan for the event, and how to comply with the Las Vegas Municipal Code LVMC 12.02.090 Provide a description of security, a description of how medical needs and sanitation requirements will be handled, and most importantly, service requests for proposed business activities, including the sale of alcoholic beverages.

In addition, Han Scene also needs to list all the entertainment activities that may occur during the music festival, specific timetables for the start of event construction and completion of dismantling, specific management methods for providing notification and obtaining opinions to residential communities affected by noise, and event plans. The type and extent of insurance provided, and other information that may be required by the approving authority.

Since the Mad City Music Festival will be held on private property owned by MGM International Hotel Group, Hanscene also needs to prepare an approval letter from the owner and submit it together with the application form to the Las Vegas Municipal Government Administrative Services Office The Special Events Department will then organize a review committee and invite representatives from all involved government departments and the Metropolitan Police to participate in the review.

Las Vegas divides special events into four categories: Uptown Parties, Level 1 Special Events, Level 2 Special Events and Level 3 Special Events. Han Live’s upcoming music festival during Halloween is a Level 3 special event, which is an event that is expected to be attended by 10,000 or more people and involves the use or impact of public rights of way, the erection of temporary structures, and the use of temporary electricity. , and very loud noise.

The activity level is the highest and involves the most approval departments. In addition to the leading administrative affairs office and the Metropolitan Police Department, Hanshine also needs to obtain approvals from the Public Works Department, the Business License Division, the Building and Safety Department, the Fire Rescue Department and the City. A nod of approval from the planning department.

When an event reaches this scale and the administrative units involved are so complex, it should not be difficult for anyone with business experience to guess what kind of sacrifices and concessions the organizer needs to make to satisfy the "appetite" of various government departments.

The first thing that needed to be sorted out was the fire rescue department. After submitting the application form, the Special Events Division of the Office of Administrative Affairs notified Hanscene and asked them to submit a complete security plan detailing how to protect the special event area and its surroundings. Safety of personnel. Where are the emergency service access to and from the site, which intersections need to be closed, how many connecting pathways are there for fire hydrants, and how many professional rescuers will be on standby in the event of a fire.

Even junior employees at Han Site know what the last sentence means - you must hire a sufficient number of firefighters to guard the site before the approval can be passed.

As a result, Han Site finally hired five fire trucks and 15 firefighters for a fee to be "on standby at the event site." The reason for the quotation marks is that these fire trucks actually do not need to be dispatched at all. Even if they are paid, they will remain parked in the fire station without moving. After all, the th Fire Station under the Las Vegas Fire Rescue Department is located on South Martin Luther King Boulevard on I-, just a seven-minute drive from the Las Vegas festival venue. Require.

Of course, these are not the only things the fire and rescue department wants. In addition to paying attention to fires, Fire and Rescue also needs to hire medical personnel. It is not possible to just cooperate with any private hospital and ask them to provide medical personnel on site. To pass the approval, the site must hire a third-party medical service company designated by the fire rescue department. Since the Mad City Music Festival is a high-risk event with more than 42 people, at least EMTs, that is, emergency medical technicians, must be on duty at the site every day, and the number of ambulances stationed at the site must also be based on one per people. configuration.

The most outrageous thing is that according to the regulations of the Las Vegas Fire Rescue Department, EMTs are not only required during the official music festival, but also during on-site construction and dismantling, a corresponding proportion of EMTs and ambulances must be present, and the proportion is much higher. many. During the performance, only 42 emergency medical technicians were needed for 10 people. However, because the medical risks during set-up and dismantling increased exponentially, one professional medical technician was required for every people.

Mad City's three-in-one stage requires a total of 137 skilled workers to complete the construction, which means that Han site must hire 14 emergency medical technicians for at least 174 hours, and the total cost per person is US$1475.

In other words, during the stage construction, Han Yi had to spend US$20650 to hire 14 non-staff personnel who had nothing to do with the event. They stood outside the venue with their hands in their pockets, waiting boredly to clock out.

If you think this expenditure is not too exaggerated, the security needs listed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will definitely surprise you.

In addition to the safety plan, organizers are required to submit a security plan detailing how order will be maintained and property protected in and around the event location. This security plan needs to be approved by the Metropolitan Police Department, and the police department’s decision on whether to approve the security plan will be based on the following points:

1. Whether to use officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

2. The number of police officers hired and their hourly rate.

3. Directing fees paid by the organizer to the Metropolitan Police.

Note that these are the mandatory rules written directly by the Las Vegas City Council in their "Special Events Code" published to the public.

In other words, paying protection fees to local snakes is directly treated as a legal business in Las Vegas, or most American cities.

Han Yi understood that holding large-scale events would never be possible without the support of the police. If the Metropolitan Police Department does not receive satisfactory remuneration, even if the activity can obtain approval, it will not be possible to proceed in a normal and orderly manner.

After all, American police want to make an event lose money in a variety of ways. For example, they suddenly receive threatening calls saying that explosive devices have been placed at the music festival and the crowd needs to be evacuated for investigation. Just such a legal and compliant anti-terrorism procedure can make Han's three months of hard work go down the drain.

Therefore, if you want the music festival to go smoothly, you must hire a sufficient number of police officers so that the Metropolitan Police Department has a sufficient budget to issue this year's New Year's bonus.

But this time, the conditions offered by Las Vegas were a bit too harsh.

The Metropolitan Police requires that the Mad City Music Festival need a police deployment of one security officer for every 150 spectators. In other words, if 1 people attend the event, Han Site will need to hire 467 LVMPD at its own expense.

Including command fees, the Metropolitan Police Department's first quote for the three-day event was $1415557.5.

This can no longer be regarded as protection money, it can be said to be a direct robbery.

Jacqueline Berto told Han Yi that the ratio of police officers proposed by the Metropolitan Police Department to the Han site was much higher than the ratio of police officers used when Caesars Entertainment Group held special events. In other words, it was because Han was an outsider with no roots in Nevada that the Las Vegas police opened their mouths like this.

Jacqueline tried to use her connections in the casino to solve this problem, but her original position at Caesars Entertainment was as senior vice president of finance, and she was only responsible for managing the company's finances, accounts and investor relations. Not much is involved in relationships. Moreover, whether the Metropolitan Police Department gives face or not, depends not on a certain person's network of contacts, but on the comprehensive influence of a group in the local area.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Jacqueline's solution ran into the LVMPD. The Metropolitan Police stated that the total number of spectators in Mad City in a single day exceeds 70,000, and it is a project of major concern with extremely high safety risks. It must not be taken over by a third-party security company, and the proportion of police officers must not be reduced.

If you don't pay what they bill, the Metropolitan Police will simply reject the event's application.

When Jacqueline received the news, it was July 2016, 7. There were still five working days left before the deadline for Level 22 special events to obtain government approval 90 days before.

Forced to have no choice, Han Yi could only use the political resources he had just activated in Nevada - Reuben Keahun.

As soon as Keehun took action, he helped Han Yi solve the two biggest problems at the administrative level, fire protection and security.

Reuben Keahun represents the 4th Congressional District of Nevada. By coincidence, the 10th Las Vegas Fire Department, which is responsible for the fire rescue mission of the music festival, happens to be in the southernmost part of the 4th District. As a result, with just a phone call from Keahun, Fire Station No. 10 approved the safety plan submitted by Hanscene and waived fire restrictions during stage set-up and dismantling.

The Metropolitan Police Department is a little more complicated. Although the headquarters is located at 400 South Martin Luther King Boulevard, which is also within the jurisdiction of Keahun, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is actually an independent agency. An administrative unit existing in the City of Las Vegas. It is a joint law enforcement agency established by the City of Las Vegas and Clark County and is directly led by the Clark County Sheriff. The position of Sheriff in Clark County is not an appointment system, but an elected system, with public elections held every four years.

Therefore, from an administrative level, the Metropolitan Police Department is not directly under the jurisdiction of the City of Las Vegas, Clark County, or even the State of Nevada. This government agency with an annual budget of 8.5 million can be said to be a country within a country located in southern Nevada.

To make matters worse, the current Clark County Sheriff is 54-year-old Republican Joe Lombardo, who undoubtedly joined the U.S. Army in 1980 and later served in the Nevada National Guard before retiring in 1986. Metropolitan Police Department, who has worked in the military police system all his life, and whose political spectrum ranges from red to black, is not an ally in the same political system as Reuben Keahun, a rising star of minority politics.

Therefore, Ruben could only help Han Yi clear the roadblocks in other ways.

As long as an institution has a management system, there will be a distribution of power, and there will be some important positions that have the right to speak and make decisions on certain specific matters. The deputy sheriff of Clark County is one of them. It’s no secret that an elected official spends far more time working on politics, especially campaigns, than he does actually working for his constituents. In order for law enforcement agencies to function properly, each elected Sheriff will form a Sheriff's Office, which will have a Chief Administrative Officer, three Assistant Sheriffs, and a Deputy Sheriff.

The deputy sheriff chosen by Joe Lombardo is Kevin McMahon, a non-partisan Webber-Sevey Award winner who, like him, has returned from serving in the U.S. Army and has worked within the Metropolitan Police Department for more than thirty years. Hill. He is the point person for all things LVMPD, and because of his centrist stance, McMahill maintains good relationships with both Democratic and Republican members of Congress in Nevada, including Reuben Keahu. kindness.

On the other hand, for Reuben Keehun, this commission from the new financier Han Yi is not that difficult. It is not the big project that they had agreed to jointly promote when they met before, so there is no need to do this. As a favor to his partisan colleagues, it would be most appropriate to ask the nonpartisan Kevin McMahill to help. Anyway, as a deputy sheriff, Kevin's appetite should not be too big. At best, it will be Joe Lombardo's request for a higher position in the future. After the election, I just helped him stand up and get the job of Sheriff.

After setting the goal, while Congress was on recess, Reuben Kilhoun flew back to Las Vegas from Washington, D.C., and invited Kevin McMahill to have a dinner. The next day, LVMPD did After making concessions and increasing the police ratio from 150:1 to 270:1, the number of police officers that Mad City needs to hire has dropped from 467 to 260. The security fees that need to be paid to the Metropolitan Police Department have also been reduced. From $1415557.5 to $778556.625.

Everything is political, and this is true in any country. Whether it is in his hometown or in this new continent where he is determined to take root and work hard, no moon is always a perfect circle, and all the moons and lunar phases have their own established orbits and contexts. Saving costs is not Han Yi’s only goal. In order for the Mad City Music Festival to go smoothly and avoid mass shootings from happening in advance next year, Han Yi also needs the full vigilance and cooperation of the Metropolitan Police Department.

BEST Crowd Management Company plays a huge role in this stage.

The parent company of BEST is GardaWorld, a private security group located in Montreal, with more than 12.2 employees. Although it is headquartered in Canada, a large part of its business lines are carried out in the United States. Therefore, GardaWorld has invested considerable lobbying resources inside and outside Parliament Hill. Due to the nature of the company itself, GardaWorld is naturally closer to the Republican Party that opposes gun bans. As a Republican, Joe Lombardo, who guards the commercial hub of Las Vegas, is naturally on their lobbying list.

It doesn’t take much thinking to understand that the reason why BEST is able to undertake security tasks for so many events in Las Vegas is really because their employees are better at fighting than other security companies?

With the help of BEST, although Han Yi and Joe Lombardo did not meet privately, they reached an agreement through the bridge in the middle. Joe Lombardo will upgrade the security level of this event within the Metropolitan Police Department for Han Yi, and Han Yi will donate a six-figure fund to Lombardo's designated SUPERPAC to support Lombardo this year A heavily promoted law prohibiting the sale of high-capacity magazines in Nevada.

The Sheriff of Clark County publicly spoke out calling for legislation, and Joe Lombardo's ambitions were clearly revealed.

At this time, Han Yi did not know that Joe Lombardo would be elected governor of Nevada in 2022. This is understandable. After all, even a reborn person cannot predict everything that will happen in the future without auxiliary equipment. I remember everything clearly, especially "the name of the winner of the 2022 Nevada gubernatorial election", which is useless knowledge that had no impact on Han Yi's life in his previous life.

But with his increasingly keen political sense, Han Yi can still feel that Joe Lombardo is different. As a second-generation military man born at the U.S. Air Force Base in Hokkaido, Joe Lombardo's career has been uneventful. He was either in the military system or the police system, and had little contact with politics. In addition, although he does not ban guns, he strictly controls guns, is not extremely conservative, but firmly opposes the Democratic Party's California Proposition 47, making him a rare person in Nevada who can unite the entire spectrum of the party while also Republican politicians who do not offend the median voter.

In addition, if Han Yi does not deliberately change history, the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival next year will become the biggest challenge in Joe Lombardo's career, but at the same time, it will also ironically become his ascent. The perfect springboard to take center stage. As long as he doesn't make too fatal public relations mistakes after the crime, he will definitely win re-election with a big score as the city's guardian.

This is a major feature of the American election. After extremely vicious events occur, voters will become more conservative, more resistant to change, and more trusting of this government. This is true whether it is a municipal, county, state or federal election.

A tragedy that would end an official's career in other countries is instead a re-election opportunity that many American politicians dream of. This has to be said to be the most impressive paradox of this country.

However, regardless of whether Han Yi can understand this phenomenon, if he wants to develop here, he must respect the local political reality. For him who wants to flex his muscles in Las Vegas, one Reuben Kilhoun is definitely not enough, and the support of the Democratic Party can only constitute half of his influence. Joe Lombardo, who will be in charge of LVMPD for a long time to come, is the best option in the red camp.

The Mad City Music Festival is just the beginning. Next, the head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will be one of Han Yi's most important political leads in Sin City.

On July 7, Han Yi’s donation of US$27 went to a super political action committee called Every Town Gun Safety Victory Fund. On the same day, Joe Lombardo went to the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and held a temporary meeting, asking his subordinates to treat the Mad City Music Festival to be held at the end of October as the most important security project of the year. The priority and security level should not be lower than EDC in June.

Immediately, on July 7, Hanscene received a call from the Special Events Department, informing them that the project had passed the joint review between departments, and the Las Vegas City Government would issue a permit for the event tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes later, BEST Crowd Management sent another email stating that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department had once again raised the minimum number of police officers, returning it to a ratio of 150:1.

But this time, the additional police officers will be provided free of charge by LVMPD, with separate special budget payments.

After coming and going, Han Yi only spent half the money, plus a political donation of 12 US dollars, to achieve double the security effect.

Although the formation of this situation is inseparable from Reuben Keahun's threading the needle, and even more from Han Yi's six-digit check, BEST Crowd Management Company and GardaWorld behind it have indeed played a significant role. role.

At least they provided Han Yi with a path to the Nevada Republican Party headquarters building.

"How long will you stay here, Mr. Spendle?"

"I will remain in Las Vegas until the event is over and the overall security mission is completed."

"That's great." Han Yi smiled and extended his hand to Jeff Spendel. "After the music festival ends on Sunday, we have prepared a celebration party at Wynn. I hope you can come and attend."

"Of course, Mr. Han."

"Thank you, Jeff...will you go to the scene later?" Ori Blistan suddenly intervened and asked.

"I...can go at any time." Jeff Spendel responded, "If you need me over there."

"If it's convenient, you may want to come and have a look with me at your convenience." Ori raised his hand and looked at his watch, "Someone from the LVMPD is coming this morning. Please provide us with the K9 patrol team on site and their police K9 patrol. The joint duty plan of the team. I just communicated with your team leader, but he obviously has not heard of such a thing. "

"Ah, I understand, he is just a field officer, he is not good at doing documents." Jeff grabbed the large suit on the back of the chair and put it on his body, "The joint duty plan... I guess some deputy superintendent came up with it. Things. Let’s rush to the scene now, Ori, I’ll call their K9 sergeant and ask them to come directly to the venue to communicate.”

"No problem, Jeff, let's go...Boss, see you on site later!"

"See you there!" Han Yi waved goodbye to Oli Blistan.

"Oli is like this once he enters the countdown state. His mind is full of problems. Every one that comes to mind must be solved immediately. He can't delay for a minute." Jacqueline smiled at Han Yi and Zhao Youzhen and explained for her subordinates. As soon as he entered the door just now, Ori Blistan looked preoccupied, and he was absent-minded in greeting Han Yi.

"This shows that every penny of my salary is used for real purposes." Han Yi didn't care at all. Ori Blistan is the head of the Han Live Music Festival department and the general manager of the implementation of the Mad City Music Festival. Control - The overall framework is controlled by Jacqueline Berto, financial management is the responsibility of Todd Gelfand's team of accountants, and all other responsibilities have to fall on Ori's shoulders.

We must race against time in the next forty-eight hours, and work hard to improve the team's integration and project completion, in order to provide audiences who are coming to Las Vegas from all over the world with a wonderful stage that they will remember for a lifetime... Under such heavy pressure, Han Yi naturally didn't care about the lack of attitude and etiquette.

"Yes, he is indeed very responsible... Then, please let me continue to introduce our office area to you, boss."

After signing two reimbursement forms handed over by Blair, Jacqueline Berto put down her pen and led her boss deeper into the conference hall.

"You have already seen the artist executive team in front of us just now. Mr. Gelfand's accountant team is in an independent room 4, which is not connected to this large conference hall. This is to ensure that we will not disturb us. To keep a clear head enough to do the accounting, but also to avoid them becoming 'too close' to... you know, people on the executive team.

“Room 3 is where our back-end support team, sponsorship manager, media manager, social media coordinator, food vendor manager, ticket manager, all the work types that don’t leave the office often and can be communicated online, are put in the conference hall. The last row. Amy and Laura, they usually work there. But today is the opening day of the sponsoring brand, and their representatives are inspecting the booths and display devices at the venue, so they are also there to accompany them. "

"Room 2... is the dozen or so desks you see surrounded in the middle. We call them the 'Pentagon.' Everyone in the production team sits around this circle. When there are no meetings, they are busy working on their own. If there is a meeting, you can just sit where you are... On-site managers, production managers, photography teams, visual teams, music directors, art directors, external staff you have met offline or in online preparation meetings , they're all here."

"They're all here?"

Looking at the empty room 2, Han Yi raised his eyebrows.

"I mean, their workstations are all here." Jacqueline walked to her own desk with the metal nameplate "Project Manager" on it, grabbed a light blue folder, and rushed Han Yi raised his head.

"The stage is expected to be set up before 3:30 in the afternoon. Now, everyone in the production team is at the venue, waiting for the technical team to install the audio and video equipment and conduct the first debugging."

(End of this chapter)