Monorail to take next step in approval process

Adrienne Packer

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1999 | 12:18 p.m.

Wandering through the quiet Desert Inn Estates neighborhood, it's difficult to imagine a state-of-the-art monorail humming high above adjacent streets a hundred yards away.

Perhaps that's the price residents pay for living so close to the Las Vegas Strip, where the more outrageous the attraction, the better. Or like many grandiose projects pitched in Las Vegas, perhaps the monorail will never happen.

On Wednesday the MGM Grand-Bally's Monorail LLC will go before the Clark County Commission for approval of adjustments to the new route that will ultimately link the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel-casino.

The group also will seek approval of its design review and traffic analysis.

To the firm represented by former Clark County Aviation Director Bob Broadbent -- and the monorail group's consultant -- the meeting is simply another step in the process.

To Desert Inn neighbors, who believe the monorail will devastate their property values, it might be the last chance to desperately implore board members to dump the $600 million project.

"They don't believe it will hurt our property," Paula Quagliana, president of the Desert Inn Homeowners Association, said. "There is no place in America where a train has gone up against a house and the house has survived."

The placement of the monorail's 4-mile route is only one concern that has been aired during the past year.

Other opponents believe the monorail corporation's financial plan is flawed and that the system touted to be the nation's first that is privately funded and constructed will end up costing taxpayers millions.

The state is studying whether issuing the monorail group a $600 million tax-free bond would be too perilous a venture.

Whether or not the bond issue is considered too risky depends on who is talking. Broadbent said the state, county and residents would owe nothing if the company goes belly-up. Only bondholders would be affected, he said.

But Jon Twichell, a consultant hired by the homeowners association, said it wouldn't take long for bondholders' attorneys to start filing lawsuits.

"It would hurt the state's bond rating, that's definite. It would cost taxpayers money because of that," said Twichell, a transportation expert based in Oakland, Calif.

Twichell maintains that charging $2 a passenger could never cover the debt related to construction, maintenance and operation related to the system.

"This is set up to fail so that the (publicly funded Regional Transportation Commission) will take it over. I'm not a conspirator, but this one is so obvious," Twichell said. "There goes hotel tax, gaming tax and property tax to pay for it."

Quagliana has spent a year attending public hearings, writing letters and meeting with county officials. Yet she said she feels she and her neighbors -- who are mostly retired -- have been ignored.

Over and over she has asked why the county is favoring a private corporation -- the Hilton -- and disregarding the residents who pay property taxes. Further, she is stunned that Broadbent and the County Commission cannot see how concrete supports built down the middle of Paradise Road would damage the value of homes.

"We have a government that seems completely out of control," Quagliana said. "No one should be able to come along and take homeowners' rights away. (The monorail group) is a bunch of arrogant people who think they're powerful.

"They're right, they are powerful. But if it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody. There is not one bit of sympathy from anyone."

Broadbent has heard all of the arguments against the monorail system before. He said he would rather not upset the residents, but the group's attempt to build the monorail on the Strip was quashed by other hotel-casinos.

Not only does he believe the monorail will succeed, he thinks a lawsuit filed last December by the homeowners association, which says the project strips them of their rights, will fail.

"We're not on their property, it's not the noise, it's not the vibration, it's the sight," Broadbent said. "I don't think it's inverse condemnation, and I don't think it's against the law."

Broadbent said he has envisioned a monorail shuttling people up and down the Strip since the late 1970s. He left his position at the airport to pursue his dream.

The proposed route is an extension of the monorail linking the MGM Grand to Bally's hotel-casino.

The new rail will run north from Bally's to Harrah's, east to Koval Lane, north to Sands Avenue and east to Paradise Road. The train will travel in the middle of Paradise Road to the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Las Vegas Hilton and terminate at the rear of the Sahara hotel-casino.

"I left the airport because I wanted to try to build this because I thought it was really needed," Broadbent said. "We started looking at the resort corridor in 1978. We said we needed to do something for the public; that was before the last six hotels were built."

Broadbent said the monorail was approved because it is a good project. He refutes talk that he is using his political clout and connections in the valley to muscle the multimillion-dollar project through.

"I am one person," he said. "What are you going to do to meet the traffic needs of this community? This is it."

But not if the homeowners association has any say, which they haven't yet, according to their attorney, Laura FitzSimmons.

"It will depend politically whether we win," FitzSimmons said.