Columnist Susan Snyder: Northwest plays the name game

Friday, Dec. 29, 2000 | 9:43 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Condolences to the champions of "Grand Tetonopolis" and "Nuevo Mackadonia."

Those were among 497 proposed names for the Northwest that didn't make the first cut.

A 35-person committee has narrowed the list to 11 prospective names for the region that generally extends north of Lake Mead Boulevard, sprawls northeast and a little southwest of Rancho Drive, and stops around Moccasin Road to the north.

The list was supposed to have 10 names, but two entries tied for 10th.

Each committee member was asked to cull 10 favorites from the list of 508 appellations submitted and list them in order of preference. Staff people in the Ward 6 office of Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack then chose the 11 most popular ones by assigning a point value for each spot.

For example, each name in the first position on each list received 10 points. Second place was given nine, and so on. They tallied the points for each of the names included and came up with the finalists.

The names, listed in descending order, are: Arrow Canyon, Centennial Village, Tule Springs, Centennial Hills, Rancho Linda Vista, Northridge, Montecito, Sheep Mountain Vista and Vista Del Sol. North Point and Vista Verde tied for 10th place.

Louise Ruskamp, vice president of the Tule Springs Homeowners Association, was a member of the first narrowing committee. She says she is happy to see some historic names make the short list.

Arrow Canyon was pulled from an 1898 atlas map of the area, she said. And Tule Springs was taken from the name of a huge ranch that sat there after the turn of the century. Ruskamp favored such names when making her choices.

"I took everything off that referred to a street," she said. "There already are a lot of businesses that take their names from streets. And we have so many other significant things in the community."

Mack, who represents Ward 6, said he doesn't have a favorite. That means he might, but he can't tell because he promised he would keep his nose out of it. He wants residents to decide.

The place needs one, he says. About 120,000 people call the region home right now. But when the dust settles and all the concrete's poured, its population will be more like 300,000.

"It needs an identity," Mack said. "We had e-mails from all over the country. It's been awesome. We're going to take all the information we gathered and capsulate it. And when we build a new park up there we're going to put it in the cornerstone so 50 or 100 years from now people can find out how it was named."

Members of a smaller committee will meet at 3 p.m. Thursday in the mayor's conference room to pick two final choices. Those will be posted on the city's website, where residents can vote. The winning name will go before the City Council for approval Jan. 17.

While people may be relieved they won't have to tell others they live in "Orchard Meadows Mountain Valley" or "Winterlin," Ruskamp says people should remember it takes people to make a community one to be proud of.

"The name isn't going to make the area," she said. "The area is going to make the name."