Columnist Jeff German: Security funding should go to Vegas

Friday, May 23, 2003 | 6:05 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

May 25, 2003

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

IF THE SUBJECT wasn't so serious, it would have been amusing last week watching Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge defend a formula that left Las Vegas off a list of 30 cities sharing $500 million in antiterrorism funds.

Ridge told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security that he tried to come up with a formula that was "rational" and "responsible."

But with all due respect to Ridge, any formula that snubs Las Vegas is neither rational nor responsible.

Maybe Ridge and those in his office who came up with the formula were blinded when they raised the national terrorism alert to bright orange, the second highest level, for the Memorial Day weekend.

That might be the most logical explanation for leaving Las Vegas off the list -- because nothing else makes any sense.

If the Homeland Security Department can't figure out that terrorists pose a big threat to this city, what kind of confidence are we supposed to have in the department's overall protection plan for the country?

Just down the road from Las Vegas is Hoover Dam, a key source for power and water in the West. That alone should qualify our community for federal funding to guard against terrorism.

But if Ridge wants more evidence of this city's vulnerability to terrorism, he should recall the whereabouts of the key terrorists who pulled off the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington. They visited Las Vegas in the weeks before the attacks.

Someone also should direct the Homeland Security director to another branch of the Bush administration, the Justice Department, which doesn't seem to share Ridge's opinion.

At a just-concluded federal trial in Detroit of four men accused of operating a terrorist sleeper cell, the Justice Department gave much credence to a witness who testified that the defendants talked about targeting Las Vegas. A tape seized from the defendants of the MGM Grand and other casinos was entered into evidence at the trial.

Don't the people at Homeland Security communicate with the Justice Department? Don't they read the newspapers, which have been covering this trial like a blanket?

Las Vegas was the "poster child" in the trial for the government's case against the accused terrorists, Sheriff Bill Young said last week.

Young still was in shock over the snub when he returned a phone call Friday between putts on the golf course during a rare day off. Earlier in the week, he said Ridge's funding formula "blows my mind."

On Friday the sheriff took a more diplomatic route, saying he was hopeful Ridge would give more consideration to Las Vegas in the future.

A large portion of the $500 million correctly went to New York ($125 million) and Washington ($42.4 million). Chicago was third on the list with $30 million.

But how did cities such as Sacramento ($6.9 million), Memphis, Tenn., ($6.1 million), and Tampa, Fla., ($5.8 million) make the list over Las Vegas?

If the Tampa-Orlando area, a tourism hotspot, can get money from Ridge, why can't the country's No. 1 tourism destination, a city that received 35 million visitors last year, get money?

Helloooooo.

The good news is that Young and Nevada's congressional delegation raised enough noise last week to get Ridge's attention -- which apparently is a bigger task than we thought.

Ridge told Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., during the House's Committee on Homeland Security hearing that he would be willing to sit down with the congressman to discuss possible adjustments in the anti-terrorism fund.

Presumably that means getting Las Vegas the money it deserves.