Jones: Metro split may be considered if tax equity fails

Steve Sebelius

Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

There are enough votes on the Las Vegas City Council to break away from the Metro Police Department, an option that may be considered if legislative efforts to establish tax equity between the city and county fail, according to Mayor Jan Laverty Jones.

Jones, speaking at a SUN editorial board meeting Tuesday, said the city would rather spend money that now goes to regional bodies such as Metro, the Regional Transportation Commission and the Regional Flood Control District on the needs of city residents.

"There are three votes to pull out of Metro now," Jones said, noting that she and Councilmen Gary Reese and Matthew Callister favor forming a city police department if taxes aren't equalized.

The city is pushing a Nov. 5 advisory ballot question that asks residents if they want lawmakers to try to equalize city and county property taxes by forming a single gaming district and distributing the money on a per capita basis. If that measure passes as expected, city officials will lobby the 1997 Legislature heavily in favor of the single gaming district and consolidation of some government services.

Jones also said the city would likely rebuff planners who want to form a regional rail authority to build a monorail from McCarran International Airport to downtown Las Vegas, unless county officials agree to work on equalizing property taxes. "It's not going to happen," she said.

The city and the county have voted to study the benefits of consolidating the Municipal and Justice courts.

The mayor said the public consideration of pulling out of Metro, which began at a City Council meeting last week, was not a scare tactic.

"It doesn't scare the public," Jones said.

But Sheriff Jerry Keller said it's not right to drag Metro into the tax equity debate.

"To try to balance the tax equity issue on the back of the Metropolitan Police Department is absolutely inappropriate," Keller said. "I can't imagine them talking about consolidation of various government services and breaking up one of the nation's finest police departments."

Keller said he had not been contacted by anyone on the council, even after the Oct. 16 meeting at which members asked city staff to study the costs of forming an independent police department.

Reese, specifically, complained that he could not get a bike patrol instituted in his eastern Las Vegas ward and that he felt helpless to answer requests from his constituents for more police service.

Keller said the bike patrol is already running in seven different areas, but that it limits the ability of officers to move around in a patrol zone. "Policing is not answered by putting somebody on a bicycle," he said.

The sheriff said Metro runs more efficiently than two separate police agencies would.

"I have to believe it would be much more costly," Keller said. "To have two chiefs of police is twice as expensive as having one. We are now starting to really gain the benefit of having a consolidated police department."

When Metro formed with the merger of Las Vegas Police and the Clark County sheriff's department in 1973, however, that was not the case. All officers and police brass kept their jobs and their paychecks, saving no money in payroll.

That example has been used by opponents of consolidation to pan the idea, but Jones said a city-county consolidation would eliminate duplicate management, saving money over the status quo of two separate governments.