Pet bills pushed through

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A bill that will allow the Clark County Commission to raise the rental car tax was among a flurry of special interest bills that failed in the regular legislative session but were revived and rushed to passage in the final hours of the special session.

Assembly Bill 16, sought by Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, allows the County Commission to raise the car rental tax by 2 percent to help finance a Culinary and Hospitality Academy in Las Vegas and a performing arts center.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, pushed two of his favorite projects -- the National Judicial College and the Louis W. McHardy National College of Juvenile and Family Justice both in Reno. If state tax collections exceed expectations, $225,000 will go to the National Judicial College and $125,000 to the juvenile college under Senate Bill 10.

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, was able to get $250,000 for a group called Fighting AIDS in Our Community Today, with passage of Assembly Bill 8.

Assembly Bill 15 provided $200,000 for continued operation of the Southern Nevada Office of the Nevada Humanities Committee. It also allocated $100,000 to the state Department of Cultural Affairs for creation of a Nevada online encyclopedia.

Assembly Bill 7, sought by Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, creates a Nevada Commission on Minority Affairs, but the bill doesn't include any state money to operate it. Donations and grants will have to be used to finance the commission.

Williams said the advisory council was supported by the Las Vegas Urban Chamber of Commerce, and Clark County would help support it.

Assembly Bill 11 creates the Nevada Office of Rural Health within the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Its aim is to improve medical care in rural Nevada. It would be operated on gifts, grants and donations of money received by the medical school. And it would help pay the medical malpractice insurance costs of those who provide prenatal care to poor patients in the rural counties.

The Board of Regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada, under Assembly Bill 9, would be authorized to waive registration and lab fees for members of the Nevada National Guard.

The Assembly sidetracked a bill that would have eliminated the requirement that the assessor's list be printed in a newspaper. Assembly Bill 6 would have allowed the information to be published online, posted at libraries and made available through the county. This developed into a fight in the regular session of the Legislature between the Nevada Press Association and Clark County.