NLV voters will be asked to OK tax hike for library

Diana Sahagun

Monday, Jan. 29, 2001 | 10:54 a.m.

North Las Vegas residents will be asked again in June to raise their taxes to pay for a new library in the city's northwest.

The City Council is considering two questions to be placed on the June 5 municipal election ballot. One asks residents to approve a 9 cent increase in the tax rate to build and maintain a new library at Alexander Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Voters rejected a similar library bond issue in 1995. The second would set more money aside for parks and fire stations, but not raise taxes.

The $8 million library bond issue would cost homeowners about $30 a year for a home worth $100,000.

The city already has the land donated and a design completed for the library. A model of a new facility sits in a glass case in the city's lone library, a testament to what could be.

North Las Vegas residents already have higher property taxes than those in Las Vegas or Clark County, at $3.38 per $100 of assessed value per year.

The rate is capped at $3.64 per $100 of assessed value.

City Finance Director Vytas Vaitkus said because the 9 cent increase allows the rate to creep close to the cap, it could pose a challenge. The Clark County Debt Management Commission must approve all tax overrides, and it tends to take a closer look when the rate comes within 90 percent of the cap.

The increase would put the rate at 95 percent of the cap, and that could make it harder to get approval by the commission, Vaitkus said.

At a recent council workshop, City Manager Kurt Fritsch listed pros and cons in trying to pass a library bond issue in June.

On one hand, both Clark County and Henderson are considering bond issues, which would allow North Las Vegas to piggyback on their campaigns.

On the other hand, Fritsch said, the North Las Vegas Library Board just approved a 4,000-square-foot storefront library in the northwest, which is expected to open in May or June.

"Get the city excited about it and then wait two years before passing a bond issue," Fritsch suggested.

But North Las Vegas Library Director Anita Laruy said she believes now is the time to put a new library before voters.

Laruy said the 1995 question failed because it was not well publicized and voters didn't know the library district was separate from the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.

With the opening of a storefront library in the northwest, Laruy predicted residents will get excited and see the need for a permanent, full-fledged library.

"If we were not to go now, and we wait until 2003, and (Clark County's and Henderson's) issues pass, the voters will turn around and say we just passed a bond issue, why is it on the ballot again?" Laruy said.

It has a nonprofit group pushing for more library services, Friends of North Las Vegas Library.

Created in 1996, the group held fund-raisers to get the word out about needed library services.

"Certainly the climate has changed from 1995 to now," said Brown, who is president of the group. "And yes, indeed, the need is there and I think the appetite will be, so we get that bond to help us get those service we need."

The second ballot question would allow the City Council to broaden use of the street maintenance tax to include parks and fire stations. It would not result in a tax increase.

In 1993 residents approved a tax hike of 24 cents per $100 assessed value to build a new jail. As the jail neared completion and the costs related to it decreased, voters in 1995 agreed to keep the tax and use the money to build and maintain streets.

The June ballot question seeks to use that money to acquire new parks and fire stations, though the tax could not be used to maintain them.