Bonds would pay for courthouse, police station

Mathis Winkler

Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2002 | 10 a.m.

If all goes well, North Las Vegas officials will be able to open a new courthouse and a second police station by early 2004.

On Tuesday members of Clark County's debt management commission approved the city's proposal to issue bonds worth $35 million to construct the two buildings.

Getting money for the courthouse was "kind of a given," said Mayor Michael Montandon, who sits on the 11-member commission composed of representatives from governmental bodies in the county, in addition to two at-large members.

But "to be able to find revenues for a police station as well is really exciting," Montandon said.

City Manager Kurt Fritsch said North Las Vegas officials would issue bonds worth $2 million for design work within the next 30 days, with the bulk of the bonds coming after construction begins in about six to nine months.

The new bonds won't get the city anywhere close to its current debt limit of $400 million; North Las Vegas only has about $60 million in outstanding bonds, city officials said.

To repay the bonds, which will cost the city $2.8 million per year over the next 20 years, officials will use $500,000 from the general fund and $300,000 in court fees.

They have also pledged $2 million in increased jail revenues, which come from an additional 100 inmates the U.S. Marshal Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service will house in North Las Vegas' new jail annex.

The two federal agencies don't have their own jails, and pay the city $62 per inmate per day. They already have about 350 inmates in North Las Vegas.

In the unlikely case that the city won't get money from these sources, the bonds would have to be paid off with general fund dollars, Fritsch said. If city coffers fall too low, city officials would try for a 14-cent tax increase, he said.

The courthouse is expected to cost about $29.7 million and will be built on 8.25 acres at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Civic Center Drive.

"It's awesome -- we really need it," said Municipal Court Judge Warren VanLandschoot, who handles the city's entire court system and deals with a case load that requires almost three judges. The new building will house two more judges.

The city's second police station should cost about $5.1 million and will be modeled after an existing Metro Police substation. City officials want to build it on a 4.5-acre parcel on Alexander Road near the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard.

That land is now owned by the city's library district, which would receive a site in a master-planned community on 1,900 acres at the northern end of the city.