Planning commissioners look to get meetings going earlier

Erin Neff

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999 | 10:44 a.m.

With memories fresh in their minds of a meeting that lasted till 4 a.m., Las Vegas planning commissioners tonight will likely vote to start their meetings an hour earlier.

If approved at tonight's meeting, subsequent meetings would begin at 6 p.m -- and hour earlier than the traditional time.

Tameri Heyden, city planning manager, remembers a meeting that stretched until 4 a.m. last November and another marathon session last month that ended at 1:30 a.m.

Bleary-eyed residents, developers and city staff slurp coffee in attempts to understand each other while the commissioners try to make the best decisions.

Several commissioners begin their average workday at 7 a.m. and are often exhausted by midnight, the average time meetings end.

"If we can make it so it ends at 10 or 11, so much the better for them," said Planning Commissioner Leni Skaar, who herself works the graveyard shift as a waitress and isn't bothered by the late nights.

"Especially for some of our commissioners, when they have to be out on the job site at 6 a.m., they tend not to be real happy campers when it is 2 o'clock in the morning."

The increase in applications, particularly in the fast-growing northwest, has increased the typical workload for commissioners.

Add to that the controversial nature of many northwest projects -- due to their encroachment into rural areas -- and you've got public hearings that stretch hours on end.

"Almost any new development in the northwest becomes controversial," Heyden said. "When you put traditionally suburban projects into a rural area, the residents and the horse owners all have something to say."

Besides the proposed change in meeting time, a December switch to quarterly general plan amendments has already helped alleviate some of the stress and rancor common during Planning Commission meetings.

Now, all general plan amendments are limited to four special meetings a year.