City planning department suffers another casualty

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1999 | 11:55 a.m.

A deputy planning director has become the latest casualty in the powerful political war in Las Vegas City Hall that chews up certain departments' employees after brief stints on the job.

Doug Powell, whose job was reportedly targeted by Councilman Michael McDonald since the Crazy Horse Too strip club's expansion earlier this year, will leave his post the first week in November.

He will become planning director in Denton, Texas, a suburb about 30 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"This is a great opportunity to go back to Texas, and it's a great opportunity professionally," said Powell, a native Texan, who has worked for the city since September 1997.

Planning chiefs in Las Vegas have historically not lasted long.

Theresa O'Donnell, the city's immediate past planning director, resigned from her post earlier this year after less than two years as chief.

Powell, who earned $84,263 as second in command in the planning department, did not comment on the speculation that McDonald had tried to fire him earlier this year.

Late last year the owners of Crazy Horse Too were in the midst of a 6,000-square-foot expansion of the strip club when they were informed by city planning staff that they had to get a variance for such an expansion.

The club was built in 1979 and taken over by Crazy Horse owner Rick Rizzolo in 1981. Several other sexually oriented businesses opened in proximity to Crazy Horse afterward.

In 1992 a city ordinance requiring a 1,000-foot separation between adult-oriented businesses took effect. Since Crazy Horse was only 773 feet from Cheetahs and 400 feet from an adult bookstore, the three businesses were classified as nonconforming to the 1992 code.

A separate city code prohibits "nonconforming uses" from expanding. City planners told Crazy Horse to get a variance.

Even though the Board of Zoning Adjustment approved the variance, residents appealed the decision to the City Council. McDonald's friendship with Rizzolo was perceived as the reason Crazy Horse began its expansion before the variance was approved.

But the club's owners claimed they had received memos from past planning directors stating that they technically weren't nonconforming and could expand. The City Council rejected the residents' appeal, with McDonald abstaining from the vote due to his friendship with Rizzolo and their use of the same attorney.

The variance has since been challenged in a lawsuit filed by Chris Christoff.

At the time, planners said they sought the variance simply to back them up if it ever went to court. But McDonald considered the request -- made by Powell -- to be unfair treatment of his friend.

Those who work with Powell will not comment publicly about the role McDonald and the Crazy Horse case played in the deputy director's decision to leave.

McDonald did not return calls seeking comment.

"Doug's a tremendous asset to this department and we will miss him," said Planning Director Tim Chow.

Powell said he looked forward to moving his family to Denton, which is home to North Texas University and has what he calls a "college town feel."

"It's also growing there and they know that they're going to be impacted by a lot of growth," Powell said.

In addition to planning staff turnover, the city has also experienced significant upheaval in its communications division.

Acting public information officer Dawn Christensen is the latest communications staff employee to announce she is leaving. Christensen, who makes $43,380, has worked for the city since December 1997. A former television reporter, Christensen will quit her city job Oct. 6 to take a position with Sig Rogich's communications group.

In addition to Christensen, the city's communications division has also lost its director, Cathy Hanson, and its public information officer, Nadia Wiggins, this year. Hanson quit amid rumors her job was on the line.

Wiggins retired but has returned to the city on a temporary basis for the past few weeks to help the short-handed department.