Editorial: Agreement won’t be a cure-all

Friday, Jan. 4, 2002 | 9:03 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council and the Clark County Commission, after months of bickering, finally have reached a land-use agreement for the fast-growing northwest. The pact approved Wednesday not only aims to get local governments to stick to their master plans for development in the area, but it also will create a "seamless" land-use plan that will merge the occasionally conflicting land-use plans. The agreement should be an improvement over the inconsistency that has bedeviled land-use decisions in the northwest, but it shouldn't be viewed as a panacea.

The "seamless" land-use plan ostensibly should end many of the headaches experienced by area residents who say that some commercial development has encroached on their neighborhoods, harming their quality of life. But, just as any agreement between warring factions, it only will work if the elected officials strongly support it. The County Commission was bitterly divided over the matter -- it passed on a 4-3 vote -- so it will be incumbent upon those on the losing end to help make it a success.

The one part of the agreement that is baffling, however, is the provision that calls for a five-year moratorium on discussions involving the consolidation of city-county services, a move that naturally would be an outgrowth of a "seamless" land-use plan. Consolidation has proven to be a winner in two important areas: the valleywide delivery of our drinking water and police protection provided by Metro, which is jointly funded by the city and county. Consolidation not only results in a better delivery of services, but it also creates the kind of efficiency that saves taxpayer money. That is why it doesn't make sense to have two parks departments, two fire departments and, for that matter, two zoning boards.

City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald tried to put the best spin on consolidation's rejection, saying that the voters themselves could get the process rolling through an initiative process. But people who aren't politicians don't have the money or the time to start an initiative process on their own. Instead, our elected officials should show leadership and take the lead in promoting consolidation.

If elected officials from the city and the county genuinely were serious about creating "seamless" planning, all they would have to do is consolidate the land-use and zoning functions of local governments. But that, of course, would mean that someone would have to cede power. Sadly, that's something neither local government is ready to do yet.