Growth panel’s future in doubt

Tuesday, June 16, 1998 | 10:53 a.m.

Only six of the elected officials and local leaders that make up the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority believe the group should continue to exist after it reports its findings to the 1999 Nevada Legislature.

The informal poll was taken during Monday's meeting when Authority members answered a list of multiple-choice questions made up by Patricia Salkin, an associate dean and director of the government law center at Albany Law School.

Salkin was brought into the Authority's meeting to help the group prioritize its tasks as laid out by the 1997 Legislature that created the group to address problems caused by the Las Vegas Valley's breakneck growth. The group will present its findings and some solutions to the 1999 Legislature. After that, the fate of the Authority is uncertain.

Only nine members said they thought that some type of regional government would be good for the valley's future. However, 16 members said that local government groups need to sometimes think and act regionally. Not one of the authority members present said a regional government should be mandated by the state.

Only one member supported an urban growth boundary, or "ring around the valley," and only one member thought regionalism for the Las Vegas Valley should result in a new government body.