Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Mayor’s vision for Las Vegas full of bright ideas

Thursday, Feb. 12, 1998 | 10:59 a.m.

Jan Jones has some big ideas. Hooray for Jan Jones.

Mayor Jan Jones' State of the City report didn't get quite as big of an audience as a recent State of the Union speech. The 200 or so people who listened to Her Honor at Monday's City Council meeting could do little by themselves to boost her own job approval ratings. But they can and we can do a great deal to help Jan fulfill at least some of the promised visions for a better Las Vegas in the coming years.

It isn't often that our community is refreshed by the public utterances of our elected leadership. That isn't their fault because we the people demand only baby steps toward needed change. For some good and bad reasons, the body politic is resistant to abrupt changes in the status quo. We generally make those who wish to move us too fast down the road of progress pay for their forthrightness at the next election.

But Mayor Jones is a different kind of politician. She's the kind that has leader written all over her. One of the risks of such a style, of course, is that her record of accomplishment has more mistakes on the debit side but that is expected when decisions are being made rather than shuffled about until the next regime can take over. And that's another thing, Las Vegas' high-heeled and high-tempered mayor seems to have little intention of allowing someone else to take over anytime soon. She sounds like she's running again and that's good for what ails the people of Las Vegas.

So what are her ideas for tomorrow? In the first place, like most really good plans for the future, her ideas are not original. Most of them have been tried before and failed or at least conceived of at an earlier date and failed to get off the drawing board for lack of a collective will to move them ahead. That's why it takes a mayor like Jan to give them new life.

How's this one for a start? Ban neighborhood casinos. That's not an original thought since I first heard it more than 30 years ago when our city fathers and mothers were concerned about the ease with which locals could blow their paychecks on the way to or from work. Jan's plan would apparently reach right into the grocery stores -- which sometimes have as many slot players as shoppers -- and say the party's over.

Making that happen will be difficult indeed. To take away from those who already have is next to impossible. To keep others who come later from having what their competitors have is an altogether different kettle of fish. But challenge is good for Jan. She's overcome some far bigger ones than just changing the way Las Vegas does business so I'll not count her out before she steps in the ring. And with a bit of good sense added to some true grit, you shouldn't bet against her making at least a sizable dent.

The next thing she wants to see is "desert landscape in all city buffers." I am not exactly sure what that means but if it will require water-saving landscape to appear where nothing but ugly presently exists then you've got to be in favor of that idea. And if it also means that the people who build our freeways are required to make them pretty when they are done -- like the aesthetically superior freeways you see in Phoenix -- and that builders will be required to make setbacks a reality and beauty a thing of the present and future, then show us where the shovels are and let's get digging. This is an idea that should fly and one that should cross all political borders of this valley.

And that brings us to a very old idea whose time comes every time Southern Nevada has to wrestle with the challenges of growth, which means it continues to linger about waiting for someone with the strength and will to finally make it happen. Maybe this time Mayor Jones can muster the community to pull in the same direction toward her ongoing vision of good government.

"I have been and always will be in support of consolidated government," she proclaimed. Hallelujah, let's get cracking. To be sure, the city and county have found a way to get along a little better than in past years but nothing irks taxpayers more than to see the dollars they send to local government used by those two entities to fight with each other over turf battles that mean nothing to the rest of us. With the overriding challenges of how to grow sensibly across this valley, if it isn't consolidation then something just short of it must happen. We've moved toward that goal, grudgingly and at a snail's pace, in recent years. Now is the time to put the effort into gear and get it done. Jan Jones is the person who can get the public behind her so that a saner governmental future lies ahead.

And the sooner government is working for the same goals instead of worrying about a competing political subdivision growing faster or wealthier at the expense of the other, then we can concentrate on the real issue of the day. The sensible, sane and market-driven way this valley will continue to grow. For grow it will, well into the 21st century. But how that growth comes and how much it costs and how much the rest of us will pay in quality of life decisions -- that's the challenge.

Las Vegas is unlike any other city in the country. We have growth. We have energy. We have the ability to write the rules for growth better than any other city. What we need is inspired leadership and the will to follow it toward change.

Mayor Jan Jones shared her vision for tomorrow at the State of the City this week. In it, she showed vision and the spirit needed to make it happen. To be sure, her path to success may not be the only one or even the best one. But it sure beats the rest of our leaders who are all dressed up for change and unable to even mount the horse for the ride forward.

Ride on, Your Honor. Good ideas will follow your lead.

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