County keeps control of air rulings

Tuesday, July 31, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

Look to the Clark County Commission for clean air. The group of seven men and women, elected from throughout the region, will be responsible for planning and enforcing rules to control air pollution.

The last effort to take some of those responsibilities away from the county failed Monday, when Gov. Kenny Guinn reaffirmed his designation of the commissioners as the single, unified air quality agency for the region.

During a summit meeting that brought together leadership from the area's cities, the county and the state, Guinn said no other government entity could both fund a regional organization and bring together planning and enforcement of new rules designed to control air pollution from dust and carbon monoxide.

The move means the commissioners will not only be accountable to the voters for clean air -- or lack of it -- throughout the county, but they also will have to answer to the federal government, which has mandated plans to clean up air pollution problems.

The federal mandate weighed heavily on the minds of about 20 policymakers and staffers, who met behind closed doors Monday.

Some city leaders had billed the meeting as a last chance to at least blunt the governor's decision. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, among others, had stridently objected to putting all air quality responsibilities into the hands of the county's elected leadership.

Goodman and others wanted a regional air quality organization with city representation. They feared that giving the county all responsibility would undermine the cities' autonomy, because the new air quality agency under the county commissioners' direction could affect land use policies throughout Southern Nevada.

"I did not accomplish what I had wanted to accomplish," Goodman said minutes after the meeting, although he said the overall conversation was "positive."

Goodman said he received some guarantees that are important for his city and other independent governments in Clark County. Chief among them is that the land use plans for Las Vegas and the other cities will not be unfairly affected by new air quality rules.

"It was made very clear today that we should be at ease," Goodman said.

Guinn agreed the autonomy of the cities' land use plans would not be violated.

"That should not be an issue after what we discussed in here," he said.

Guinn said to ensure that air quality rules are applied equally and fairly, he would hold public meetings every three months to review work by the county -- and to ensure that the policies have been fairly implemented.

The Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, an advisory body that includes representatives from the cities, the county and the Clark County School Board, also can audit the work of the new county agency and the commissioners' air quality decisions, Guinn said during the meeting.

The city of Las Vegas has an auditor who could make such an analysis, said Erik Pappa, city spokesman. But, he said, "the governor suggested that such an audit could be performed by anybody."

Jack Finn, Guinn's spokesman, agreed. He said the governor did not in any way confer new audit power on the city or the Regional Planning Coalition.

As county commissioners promised, policy makers and staffers from the cities were offered participation in advisory or technical committees that would provide input to county staff and the commissioners.

But clearly off the table was any direct participation in the final policy decisions commissioners will make regarding air quality.

"We'll have an opportunity to keep our finger completely in the pie" of air quality policy, Goodman said, only to be swiftly contradicted by County Commissioner Erin Kenny.

Kenny said while the advice and consultation of the cities will be welcome, the ultimate responsibility for making and enforcing air quality rules will be with the county.

"There's no legal basis for any kind of oversight" of the county's policy- making on the issue, said Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, selected by his colleagues as chairman of the new air quality board.

Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said one of the goals of the meeting was to ease the concerns of the cities.

"The county is going to be very responsive to their concerns, and we'll incorporate them into the decision-making process," he said. "From day one what we've told them is that we weren't trying to usurp any of their authority.

"What we're interested in doing is working together."

Guinn said Nevada law and other fundamental issues prevented him from naming a regional board with city representatives to oversee air quality in the region.

State law says only one of two functioning agencies can oversee the implementation of air quality rules: The county commissioners or the Clark County District Board of Health, an independent agency which, until the governor's designation, had enforced the rules.

The county's planning department always had responsibility for planning, a responsibility that gained importance as the threat of federal sanctions became more real over the past several years.

Guinn said an analysis last year of problems in the previous air quality regimen convinced him that splitting planning duties and enforcement tasks didn't make sense. The jobs had to be in one agency, he said.

Additionally, Clark County was the only government entity willing to fund the $13 million annually that the air pollution control effort needs, he said.

Three months ago the governor and leadership from throughout the county supported quite a different concept of how the air quality rules would be planned and enforced -- in a brand new regional, unified agency.

Local governments submitted a proposal to the Legislature that would have created a regional board and supporting organization, with adequate funding for dozens of new staff positions.

Guinn said he supported the regional board, but that the new agency was never funded by the Legislature, forcing him to veto the proposal.

At risk were hundreds of million in federal funding for new roads and other infrastructure, he said.

Plans to control fine airborne dust and carbon monoxide are now before the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Those plans include commitments to hire staff to enforce new rules designed to protect air quality.

Failure to fund those positions would mean the plans would be dead on arrival, Guinn said, and could trigger mandatory federal sanctions including loss of road money and the federal takeover of local land use planning decisions.

Faced with deadlines for those plans that kick in by the end of this year, Guinn said he had no choice but to name the county commissioners as the unified air quality agency for the region.

Beyond the question of federal intervention, Guinn said he and his own family have a personal stake in the region's air quality.

"This is a problem for everyone in this valley," he said. "This is too important for us not to come together ... . It is the most profound problem that we'll face in the years to come and that we have been facing."