Golf course will evict Metro facility

Thursday, Sept. 24, 1998 | 10:50 a.m.

The planned $33 million golf course at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, which was approved last week by the Clark County Commission, has claimed an unlikely victim -- the Metro Police Communications Center.

The Metro Police Fiscal Affairs Committee was informed during its monthly meeting Wednesday that the facility at 4850 Las Vegas Blvd. So., near Russell Road, will have to be demolished to make way for the 27-hole course, the contract for which was awarded to local golf course developer and sports gambler Billy Walters.

Las Vegas City Councilman Arnie Adamsen, a member of the committee that oversees the financing of the police department, said the new communications center also will feature fingerprint and ID labs, but the site of that facility is yet to be determined.

The five-member board, comprised of city councilmen and county commissioners, will order the issuing of bonds to build the structure once a site is chosen. The county and city, which fund the police department, will split the cost of equipment and maintenance for the new building.

"The new communications center will feature a reverse 911 system," Adamsen said. "When there is a serious problem like a fire, the system will call the people with the same phone prefix (as those in the disaster area) and advise them by a tape-recorded message where it is so they can avoid the area."

The contract for the golf project that will be built on 155 acres of publicly owned land south of Russell Road has been one of the most controversial local land deals in recent memory.

After dragging on for about a year, three of the seven commissioners -- Bruce Woodbury, Mary Kincaid and Lance Malone -- had to abstain from voting on the project because of their relationships with some or all three applicants, each of whom is a high-powered community leader.

Walters, who owns the Desert Pines golf course, was chosen over Club Corp. of America, which had tennis star Andre Agassi as one of its partners, and the US/GP-LV Partnership that wanted to build a 2.9-mile auto racetrack and had local advertising executive and political consultant Sig Rogich as a partner.

A fourth commissioner, Lorraine Hunt, abstained from voting on the project for reasons other than conflict of interest, leaving less than half of the county's elected officials -- Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates, Myrna Williams and Erin Kenny -- to render a decision on such a major project.