North Las Vegas City Council briefs for Dec. 5, 2002

Thursday, Dec. 5, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

BLM funds sought for Craig park

The North Las Vegas City Council wants the federal government to help turn the Craig Ranch Golf Course into one of the largest parks in the area.

The council voted 5-0 on Wednesday to ask the Bureau of Land Management to buy the 132-acre golf course at 628 W. Craig Road.

The land would cost $32 million to $38 million, according to city documents. The money for the purchase would come from the BLM through the Special Fund Account established by the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act.

The city will probably apply for BLM funds set aside for parks, trails and natural areas, City Manager Kurt Fritsch said. The next deadline to nominate lands to be purchased with those funds is Jan. 10.

City Community Development Director Jacque Risner said the city has no plans for exactly what a park on that property would include, or how much it would cost to turn the golf course into a park.

MLK to get two more lanes

A one-mile stretch of Martin Luther King Boulevard from Carey to Cheyenne avenues will be widened from four to six lanes next year.

The City Council on Wednesday voted 5-0 to pay Frehner Construction Co. of Las Vegas $4.5 million to widen that portion of the road, add storm drains and landscape the median, City Engineer Laurnal Gubler said.

Construction should begin in February and take about a year to complete, he said.

City to accept new fire station

The problems that have kept North Las Vegas from accepting a fire station built by a developer have been resolved, and the city could officially take the building in early January, city and developer representatives said Wednesday.

The developer, Ann Allen LLC, was supposed to have the shell of the fire station at 5725 Allen Lane completed by August, and most of it was. But a list of relatively minor work remained unfinished for months, which upset some members of the City Council.

Ann Allen built the shell of the station at 5725 Allen Lane as part of an agreement under which the City Council gave the company permission to put commercial and residential development around the station.

Deputy Fire Chief Jim Stubler inspected the station Wednesday, after which he said: "We're down to zero issues ... It's a virtual done deal."

The new fire station is expected to be open by April. It will house one engine and one rescue unit and be staffed by three shifts of five or six emergency workers, Stubler said.

Limits placed on business signs

New commercial signs in North Las Vegas will have to be shorter and smaller from now on. Under an ordinance adopted Wednesday by the City Council, new signs can be no taller than 35 feet and no larger than 400 square feet.

Mayor Michael Montandon has said he hopes the new limits will cut down on what he calls "vertical pollution."

Previously signs could be up to 60 feet tall, and sign size was based on the length of a property's road frontage, 1 square foot for every foot of frontage.

The new law also allows pole signs if the poles are covered in some way.

"This is a good balance between the needs of the city and needs of the businesses and sign industry," Baxter said.