NLV: County to help construct rec center

Lisa Snedeker

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 10:07 a.m.

The Clark County Commission and North Las Vegas City Council are scheduled to vote separately next week on an agreement to build a recreation facility in the city.

George Stevens, the county's director of finance, said as part of the agreement the county will give the city an immediate $1 million out of its discretionary funds and another $4 million that will be financed over 10 years.

Stevens estimated the total cost of the project -- to acquire the land and construct and equip the recreational center -- will be more than $5 million. Because the center is still being planned -- it has not even been designed yet -- officials cannot say what exact services and amenities will available.

The county justifies its donation to the city on the fact that the center will be a regional facility.

County commissioners nixed a plan earlier this month to help construct a library in North Las Vegas with county tax dollars and instead agreed to help the financially strapped city build a recreation center.

Mayor Michael Montandon and County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates came up with the library 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 in the city's fast-growing northwest area.

The 1997 Legislature gave North Las Vegas $350,000 to design the 43,000-square-foot library following a private donation of the property near the corner of Alexander Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard. The current Legislature is still considering whether to fund an additional request for $1.3 million.

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 are looking elsewhere for funds to build the library that has a total price tag of $10 million, including books and furnishings.

North Las Vegas is growing at an estimated rate of almost 15 percent annually -- about 1,500 people move to the city 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.