Agency still hopes to get new libraries built

Jace Radke

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 12:07 p.m.

The Clark County-Las Vegas Library District is not ready to give up on a $46.5 million bond proposal to build new libraries.

The idea has previously been rejected by the county's Debt Management Commission.

"There been a lot of tweaking on the proposal, and that may not be a real appropriate word because there was a lot of work that went into it,' library trustee Chairman Mel Pohl said. "It was a heartbreak at the debt management meeting, but we're not dead yet."

The proposal, a scaled-down version of a $74 million plan, would construct four new libraries throughout the county, but officials on the Debt Management Commission were concerned that issuing the bonds would push certain jurisdictions into the "red zone" of the state tax cap.

Each government entity tries to stay below 90 percent of the state's cap, which is $3.64 per $100 assessed valuation of a home.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald is among the officials on the debt management board who voted against the proposal. She said it would put some areas of Las Vegas over the 90 percent mark.

In an attempt to address the concerns relating to the tax cap, district officials have reworked the infrastructure of the proposal to ensure that it does not push entities over the cap, said Daniel Walters, the library district's executive director.

"The commission passed a motion to reconsider the proposal if the concerns were addressed," Walters said at Thursday night's meeting of the district's trustees. "It's now in the commission's hands and it will either be satisfactory or not."

Should the commission approve the bond issue, it will be placed on the municipal ballot in June.

The bond would build four libraries, one in Mesquite, one in eastern Las Vegas, one at Compass Point in the southwest and one in the northwest.