Columnist Jon Ralston: Guinn may steal county’s air-quality thunder

Wednesday, July 25, 2001 | 8:51 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

OF AIR quality, base-broadening and Internet gaming:

* Not so fast, Ms. Kenny and the six dwarfs: The county may have voted to formally take over air quality supremacy Tuesday, but the commissioners may be in for a surprise next week.

The city of Las Vegas has persuaded other municipal representatives -- and a county person or two -- to attend a meeting with Gov. Kenny Guinn to try to undercut what the county has done with such alacrity and ruthlessness, led by Commissioner Erin Kenny.

How does the "Governor's Air Quality Commission" sound?

The concept, which the governor can claim credit for concocting, would be for him to appoint a bunch of local officials, some state folks and private sector affected parties (developers, environmentalists, power generators) to give the patina of a comprehensive approach to the problem, like the regional board that was first envisioned by ... now who was it again? -- oh, yes, Erin Kenny.

The county surely would squeal like a stuck pig and say that Guinn was reneging on his promise to give authority to the commissioners to be the air quality leaders. But if Guinn says he believes a regional board should have the power to oversee and perhaps even audit the county's air quality function, that would be a meaningful victory for the cities.

If it doesn't cost too much and can be done legally, why wouldn't Guinn buy into it?

* What's a nice Republican like you ... Today at Lake Tahoe, a lawmaker will address the summer gathering of the Nevada State Education Association to talk about all his efforts to help boost funding during Session '01.

So who is the lucky lawmaker tabbed for this honor by the Democratic-aligned special interest? Speaker Richard Perkins? Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley? Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus?

None of the above. In fact, the legislator is no Democrat -- it is GOP state Sen. Mark James, who was lauded by the education establishment during the Legislature for continuing to push for enhanced education funding.

Eventually, he had to settle for a much smaller increase than he had hoped -- and without any broadening of the tax base to business, as he wanted. But James was willing to speak up when everyone else in the building and across the courtyard in the governor's office was mute. So it's recognition time.

And James plans to use the appearance to try to show the organization why it should not just support him, the future majority leader of the Senate (or so he hopes, once Bill Raggio retires), but other Republicans, too.

James said he believes that "some Republicans are concerned about offending the base (of the GOP) ... But the essence of leadership is to convince the base of supporters that a new direction is in their interest ... The days of Democrats having a monopoly on the issue, I'd like to see them end."

James also said the party and other lawmakers -- and although he didn't mention him, he surely implied Gov. Kenny Guinn -- are making a mistake by not addressing the structural deficit in the tax system before November 2002.

"The time is now," James said this week. "Everyone wants to shy away from this because there's an election coming up. That's not a good idea and it's a bad idea politically. People out there are still concerned about this."

I'm sure the NSEA folks will love the pitch. But I wonder how Raggio & Co. will like it.

* Paving the way: For those who still do not comprehend what the significance of Nevada enacting a bill to make it easier for gaming companies to get into Internet gambling, it is not, as the advocates claim, to keep the local industry competitive in case the practice is legalized. It will, as you can see from the first paragraph of a wire story this week about a House bill to ban Internet gaming, be used as an example of the state's dissonance with many members of the Gang of 535, who are not nearly so malleable as the Gang of 63. To wit:

"Members of Congress for the fourth time are preparing an assault on Internet gambling, a $1.6 billion industry, even as Nevada considers becoming the first state to approve it," an Associated Press story began Tuesday. The story was about a new strategy by a group of lawmakers to offer not just isolated bills to ban or undermine Internet gambling, but to amalgamate them into a package to defang the emerging industry.

But for the Nevada companies, the question no longer is whether any of these multifarious efforts to ban Internet gaming or prohibit credit card usage on the sites will slow down the inevitable leap for gamingkind into cyberspace.

The question now has become: How fast can they make it happen so they can get into the business?