Columnist Janie Greenspun Gale: Councilman Brown has much to learn

Sunday, Dec. 5, 1999 | 10:06 a.m.

Janie Greenspun Gale, a member of the family that owns the Las Vegas Sun, is an occasional columnist for this newspaper.

IT'S TIME Councilman Larry Brown has a little history lesson. If he harbors any intentions of becoming mayor one day -- and it appears he's positioning himself to do so -- he'd better realize it takes more than building a war chest from developers and rewarding unpaid political workers with business windfalls.

What being mayor requires are the qualities Mayor Goodman and his predecessors, Jan Jones and Ron Lurie, exhibited: backbone to stand up for what's right and a love for Las Vegas that allows them to know which decisions are the correct ones for the future of our valley.

What it doesn't call for is a pandering to developers -- and, yes, my family is in the development business -- and an unwillingness to listen to concerns of those fighting for issues more valuable than money.

Wednesday night in council chambers I witnessed and participated in one of the most bizarre exercises in futility I have ever experienced. Although I was informed it was "a done deal" by one who stood to gain enormously by the proposed Northwest General Plan Amendment, I had enough faith in the political process to believe that promises made less than two years ago when the Town Center Plan was adopted would be honored.

That plan had as one of its major components the concept that the last rural piece of Las Vegas -- where I live -- an area considered highly sensitive environmentally, would be protected. But since the adoption of the Northwest Plan, we who value the rural way of life have endured assault after assault on the original intent, simply because developers have the ear of Larry Brown. And he doesn't say no to them.

The most recent attack was allowed to go forward Wednesday night even though attorneys for both sides asked the council for a continuance until after the holidays to give their clients a chance to sit down and come to some common ground. Brown insisted the process go forward, perhaps realizing that after the first of the year he'd no longer control the area in question when two new board members would take their seats.

The biggest travesty of all was that just three council members were allowed to vote on such an important amendment. Because of some outrageous ethics concern by the city attorney, Mayor Goodman had to abstain from the proceedings because his law partner publicly opposed the amendment at a Planning Commission hearing. The Planning Commission, by the way, turned down the amendment, as did city staff.

Yet Brown, whose friends and political consultants and contributors had everything to gain from passage of the amendment, was allowed to vote. Political favors were paid in full Wednesday night.

What was at stake is a still-rural area of Las Vegas northeast of I-95 and the new Centennial beltway, which includes the historic Gilcrease ranch area, known for its orchards.

What the discussion degraded into was a rich person with lots of acreage against the people who live in the newly built condos bordering the new highway. It should never have become thus. This was not a battle between the haves and have-nots, but rather about preserving a way of life that people living in big houses, small and medium-sized homes, as well as those in pre-fab houses, cherish.

The rural way of life is not about a bunch of rich people riding around on horseback. Rather, it's a choice made by those of us who relish waking up early in the morning to see coyotes walking across the landscape. We don't mind driving 30 minutes into town to work, do our shopping or go to dinner, because we know that when we come home at night jack rabbits will be hopping back and forth across the dirt roads.

This quality of life includes never tiring of seeing every star at night and the constant marveling at hawks as they catch air currents and circle in the sky. And if we're really lucky, every now and then, as we drive up the dirt roads, our headlights will capture a glimpse of a big white owl perched upon a fence before it silently flies away.

Has Councilman Brown ever considered what's to become of these creatures and all the others we share the desert with, before he agrees to allow every square inch of their homes to be concreted over?

Here's where the history lesson comes in, Mr. Brown. As you were making your speech in favor of amending the Town Center Plan, designating commercial where before none was allowed, you made a remark that you were sure plenty of people were upset when my father began building Green Valley.

When my father envisioned Green Valley in the 1950s, Mr. Brown, it was an area covered by lava rock encompassing Pittman Wash, a smelly part of town you had to roll your car windows up while driving through on your way to Lake Mead.

He turned that area into one of the finest examples of a master-planned community in this country. Today Henderson is the second largest city in Nevada because people enjoy the clean suburban neighborhood his vision engendered.

How dare you compare what you pushed through Wednesday night, the flagrant thumbing your nose at those to whom you are supposed to respond, in favor of developers who grabbed land for profit as though they had inside information as to where the boundaries would be moved.

You'd make a lousy mayor, Mr. Brown. You haven't got the stomach for the job.