Business briefs for December 18, 2001

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001 | 9:34 a.m.

LV company wins Olympic bid to house police officers

A Las Vegas company will supply motor homes to house law enforcement officers from around the world at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area of Northern Utah.

Michael Williams, vice president of Bates International Motor Home Rental Systems, said the company initially would supply 170 motor homes for the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command, which is coordinating law enforcement efforts at the Games Feb. 1-25.

The number of motor homes, which will be parked at a central law-enforcement compound for the duration of the Games, may be increased to more than 200 if they're needed, Williams said.

Bates won the bid after two years of preparations.

Tammy Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command, said the amount of the contract could not be disclosed for security reasons.

Williams said Bates has 20 locations in the United States and Canada and has its corporate headquarters at Eastern and Twain avenues. The company's storage and service yard is in Henderson near the Sunset Station hotel-casino.

Carrier resumes expansion

DALLAS -- Southwest Airlines -- the busiest airline serving Las Vegas -- said Monday it would add a few flights and take delivery of two Boeing 737s in February, the first additions to its fleet since the attacks of Sept. 11 caused air travel to plunge.

Chief Executive James Parker said Southwest jets are still less full than they were a year ago but that a pickup in travel since September prompted the airline to "cautiously resume our growth with these new aircraft."

Southwest said it would add flights on current routes from Baltimore to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Manchester, N.H.; and from Islip, N.Y., to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

Contractor denies shareholder allegations

Las Vegas highway contractor Meadow Valley Corp. denied accusations by a major shareholder, Silver State Materials Corp., that the contractor is being mismanaged by its board of directors.

Silver State, a Las Vegas ready mix concrete supplier that owns 14.4 percent of Meadow Valley shares, and its chairman Cyrus Spurlino, who owns 1.3 percent, sued Arizona-based Meadow Valley and its seven directors on Nov. 15 in Clark County District Court.

Silver State seeks to remove the current board and elect a new board, alleging they weren't validly elected in 1994 and 1996 and have stood for re-election in successive years under false circumstances as though they had previously served valid terms.

Meadow Valley said the complaint "is without merit and intends to vigorously defend it."

Firm sued by shareholder

A shareholder of Chadmoore Wireless Group Inc. sued the Las Vegas telecommunications company and its president, Robert Moore, alleging the value of its Chadmoore stock was diluted after it invested $700,000 in Chadmoore.

Third Mobile Ltd., which said it acquired 15 percent of Chadmoore in January 1995, said the defendants breached an agreement to maintain two Third Mobile executives on Chadmoore's board of directors and that Third Mobile's stock interest wouldn't be diluted when Chadmoore went public.

Chadmoore is the nation's second-largest holder of "specialized mobile radio" licenses, with 4,800 licenses covering 180 towns and cities or about one-fifth of the country's population.

The defendants declined comment.

Fuel device firm bankrupt

Dallas-based DecisionLink Inc., which has one office in Las Vegas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Las Vegas.

DecisionLink, a maker of products monitoring propane and fuel oil tank levels, which filed Chapter 11 in Las Vegas on Dec. 6, said its 15-worker Las Vegas office will remain open.

In a quarterly report, DecisionLink cited a number of "competitive challenges" that are mostly "outside of (its) control," including "constrained capital resources, ... insufficient revenues, unsatisfactory current economies of scale and inflexibility of (its) existing cost structure."