North Las Vegas library loses round

Lisa Snedeker

Monday, May 3, 1999 | 10:56 a.m.

Clark County commissioners have nixed a plan to help construct a library in North Las Vegas with county tax dollars and instead are going to help the financially strapped city build an estimated $4 million recreation center.

Mayor Michael Montandon and County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates came up with a proposal earlier this year in which the county would have given the city $5 million -- $2 million of which was a loan that the city would have paid back -- toward construction costs of a branch library in the city's fast-growing northwest area.

Montandon said the proposed funding for the library no longer looks feasible, however. Gates admits she does not have backing from all of the commissioners for the plan.

"I think a library is desperately needed in that area, but it probably won't be funded by the county," she said. "I'm just waiting to see what happens in the Legislature."

The 1997 Legislature already gave North Las Vegas $350,000 to design the 43,000-square-foot library following a private donation of the property.

But because city and North Las Vegas Library District officials thought funding would be coming from the county, they asked the Legislature for only $1.3 million, instead of the original request for more than $6 million.

That means city officials will have to look elsewhere for funds to build the library that has a total price tag of $10 million, including books and furnishings.

What the county is willing to fund, however, is a much-needed recreation center, a plan Gates initiated with North Las Vegas Councilwoman Paula Brown, Gates said.

An initial $1 million allocation to go toward a recreation center in North Las Vegas is on Tuesday's County Commission agenda.

While disappointed about the funding loss, Councilwoman Stephanie Smith said one new facility is better than none.

"Right now we have nothing, so at least we will get something," she said. "The city needs a library and a recreation center. If there is a way to get one or both, we need to do it."

Smith said the city set aside $3.5 million to build a recreation center between the city's growing northwest side and its older neighborhoods.

City officials don't know all the details, but an interlocal agreement will be worked out after the county money is allocated, Smith said.

"This gives us much more than we could have ever done on our own," she said.

The parcel Gates has her eye on is within her district and the North Las Vegas city limits, but because it is privately owned, she did not want to disclose its location.

Gates said she proposed to help the city fund the recreation center, modeled after Desert Breeze Park in northwest Las Vegas, before the library proposal was hatched.

North Las Vegas is growing at an estimated rate of almost 15 percent annually or about 1,500 people moving in each month.

The city of nearly 107,000 residents is home to one library and one recreation complex and has not kept up with residents' demands for additional facilities.

Homeowners complain they pay the highest property taxes in the valley, but they have the least amount of services. City officials say it's because the tax base hasn't balanced out yet to reflect the influx of residents.

"The people are here, but the taxes haven't been generated," Brown said.

Brown added that because the state is still working from the 1990 Census for sales tax distribution, North Las Vegas receives revenue based on a population of 47,000.

This is not the first joint venture between a municipality and the county to build recreational facilities. The county helped North Las Vegas build its current sports complex on the Community College of Southern Nevada's Cheyenne campus, Gates said.

The county and Las Vegas also recently collaborated on plans to build a $6 million soccer complex and leisure park on 60 acres at the corner of Lake Mead Boulevard and Tenaya Way using matching funds.

Commissioner Erin Kenny said she supports government entities coming together to provide something such as the recreation center in North Las Vegas for the entire community. "We're going to create something together that neither could have created individually," she said.

One reason the mayor and Gates wanted to use county funds on branch library near the southwest corner of Alexander Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard is that voters in 1995 rejected a tax increase to support library services.

But that doesn't mean libraries are not needed.

Library District Director Anita Laruy said in 1991 she attended a meeting with the then-director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District who projected the city would need five branches by 2000.

"With us it's a desperate need," Laruy said. "We should at this point not be planning for a new library, we should be planning for the next two."

The funding problem dates from the creation of the district in 1993 when the North Las Vegas Library District broke away from the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.

In 1981 as part of property tax reform, there was a shift in the state's tax revenue distribution and the state capped the amount of taxes that each municipality could receive. The North Las Vegas Library District was not allowed into that formula after the fact.

"They (state legislators) told me point blank, 'If you want a district, you will get one, but you won't get any taxes from the sales of liquor, tobacco, etc.,' " she said. "They said no other entities would be able to tap into this pot."

For example, the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District received $10.5 million, Boulder City received $320,000 and Henderson received $1.1 million from state sales tax revenue this year.

When North Las Vegas residents purchase such items as alcohol or cigarettes, the taxes generated are allocated to the Las Vegas-Clark County district.

"Had we been in the formula, we would have received $1 million," said Laruy, who added that instead the district continues to be subsidized by the city.

"We do contribute, but we don't get the distribution (of taxes), which hurts our operating costs."

Laruy said the City Council is committed to helping the district obtain funds.

"We will get a library," she said.