Factions forming on arena committee

Erin Neff

Friday, Oct. 15, 1999 | 11:33 a.m.

A committee studying the feasibility of a sports arena and performing arts center vowed Thursday to keep up the momentum generated with a delegation's recent trip to New York to talk with pro sports leaders.

But subtle factions are beginning to develop within the 29-person ad hoc committee co-chaired by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Clark County Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury.

After no decisions were made about anything during Thursday's meeting at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, one committee member left in a huff exclaiming, "This is bull..... I don't know why I bother coming. We're not doing anything."

During the meeting Goodman characterized the Sept. 28 meetings with NBA Commissioner David Stern and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman as successes even though no franchises are available in either sport and both leagues have some difficulty with sports betting.

"The media, or at least some of the media, characterized our meeting back in New York as a failure," Goodman said. "I don't view it that way at all. I thought it was very positive."

Woodbury, who also went on the trip, wasn't as upbeat when he mentioned the NBA's anti-gambling stance.

"That policy might be changed only if we ever got to the point where there was a team or an owner of a team that had a real interest in moving to Las Vegas," Woodbury said.

Earlier Thursday during his weekly press conference Goodman said he was waiting for Stern to talk to NBA owners Oct. 28 and ask them whether they had specific anti-gambling sentiment.

"I have a prediction," Goodman said. "On the 29th, we are going to find out that we are very much up for a basketball team."

But some committee members appeared less interested in placing so much weight on the NBA.

Dr. Keith Boman presented plans for a 3,200-seat performing arts center and adjacent 600-seat community theater that he said the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation is ready to pursue.

"We just seem to be stalemated here with no place to land and that seems to continue on year after year," Boman said about performing arts center plans.

Boyd Gaming Corp. Chairman Don Snyder urged the committee "to not lose focus on the performing arts center as perhaps being a real healthy first step to take in doing something that we've all talked about as being very beneficial to the community."

Although Stern seemed to have a lukewarm reaction to allowing a Las Vegas-based team, hockey had a much kinder reception to the delegates.

Bettman told them that while there are no franchises available or plans for expanding the league, he thinks Las Vegas could support a professional hockey team without a basketball team.

The NHL said they would likely require the "UNLV rule" to be applied to any Las Vegas hockey team, meaning its games would be off the board at sports books.

"Why don't we push forward with hockey, try to get them in the (Thomas & Mack Center) and keep meeting with the NBA?" asked Steven Cloobeck, president of Polo Towers.

"Then if the arena is built within the next five years, at least we have a hockey team," Cloobeck said.

But Goodman responded by saying, "We don't have to wait that much longer to find out what the reaction is from the NBA."

The arena committee will next meet Nov. 18.