Editorial: County must take initiative in dispute

Friday, March 28, 2003 | 4:29 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: March 30, 2003

The Regional Justice Center being built in downtown Las Vegas was supposed to be open for business in January 2002. The courtrooms and district attorney's offices the building was designed for should have been fully occupied by now. Instead, a construction crew, which funding disputes have diminished by two-thirds, is still hammering away. And while the millions in cost overruns mount, the county and contractor continue hammering away too -- in the form of verbal assaults aimed at each other.

Clark County says the contractor should never have been awarded the bid because it's too inexperienced in big projects. The contractor fires back that it's the county that is inexperienced in large construction deals. The county charges that too few workers are on the job. The contractor says if the county wants more it must pay for them. The county says the work has been slipshod. The contractor says the architectural plans were slipshod. And so it goes.

This waste of time and taxpayers' money has gone on long enough. The county, which picked the contractor and made the contract, has the responsibility to negotiate a way through this thicket of charges and counter charges. This problem needs to be fixed and the county should take the lead, immediately.