Columnist Susan Snyder: Old news is new news at Red Rock

Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2002 | 8:17 a.m.

Ever spent an afternoon with old newspapers?

No, no, not old newspaper people, just the old papers. (The people are too dusty.)

I found this interesting excerpt from the March 24, 1973, edition of the Las Vegas Sun:

"A storm is brewing in Red Rock Canyon over an application of local automobile dealer Fletcher Jones and a California partner to rezone the former 518-acre Krupp Ranch, which they bought, for a planned development which involves condominiums and horseback riding facilities."

And then, a couple of paragraphs later:

"The rezoning application ... is scheduled for action before the Clark County Planning Commission Tuesday night, and is expected to to draw heavy opposition from the Red Rocks Parks Advisory Commission, a group of Southern Nevadans appointed by State Park Director Erick Cronkhite to represent the citizenry's wishes for the fate of the area."

Even if you didn't live in the Las Vegas Valley in 1973, this should sound vaguely familiar. Representatives of John Laing Homes are proposing to build an 8,400-home community atop Blue Diamond Hill, on a site surrounded on three sides by the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Residents distressed by the idea of subdivisions perched smack-dab in the middle of our urban bowl's last sliver of relatively unspoiled open space booed Clark County Planning Commission members out of the room last week when they granted the developer a delay until October.

The resistors, who filled a rented bus, made such a ruckus fearful public officials called Metro Police. Four squad cars arrived as the busload of snarling watchdogs was leaving.

They were at it again Sunday, packing the Red Rock Overlook on State Road 159 -- across from Blue Diamond Hill -- with conservation-area lovers who arrived on foot, in trucks, on horses and on bicycles.

They waved signs and passed around petitions and "Save Red Rock" buttons. They hooted and hollered at motorists who honked in support as they drove past.

A family from Arizona, riding in a dusty extended-cab pickup truck loaded with camping gear and mountain bikes, cruised slowly through the crowd.

"They want to do what?!" the driver said. "Too bad we're from Arizona. We can't sign the petition. But good luck with the fight."

It will be a fight to the finish, judging by a yellowed clipping from June 24, 1973, about the plan by Jones and Californian William Murphy to build an equestrian-oriented community on the Red Rock Canyon ranch they bought from the Howard Hughes Corporation:

"The County Planning Commission, after receiving a petition from Blue Diamond residents protesting the zone change, along with another 4,000 names which also objected to the change, recommended denying the zone change."

County Commissioners never got a chance to vote on the project because Jones and Murphy withdrew their application hours before the meeting. The state bought the land at auction. We now enjoy it as Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.

Petitions, letters, protests and outrage work. They don't buck the system, they are the system. Alone or by the busload, make this newest rash of lesions on Red Rock Canyon into old news.