Columnist Jeff German: Looking for compromise on Red Rock megaresort

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 11:22 a.m.

The battle over Red Rock Station in Summerlin is shaping up as one of the most intense neighborhood versus developers skirmishes to face the Clark County Commission in recent years.

And things are only going to get more intense in the coming weeks unless someone is bold enough to broker a compromise.

The project's critics don't have a problem with Station Casinos building the neighborhood casino on West Charleston Boulevard several miles from Red Rock Canyon. The resort will bring the usual amenities associated with the gaming giant -- movie theatres, restaurants, bowling alleys and much more.

But questions have been raised over whether Station Casinos, one of the state's biggest political contributors, has gotten too grandiose with its plans.

It wants the County Commission on Dec. 3 to allow it to put up a Strip-sized, 300-foot hotel tower with 1,500 rooms, far above the 100-foot height originally zoned for the project.

Station Casinos seems determined to make Red Rock Station more than a simple neighborhood casino and, according to its critics, it doesn't seem to care whether it ruins any scenic views.

That has prompted a grass-roots campaign, led by the Culinary Union, which also happens to be trying to organize some 10,000 Station Casinos employees, to persuade the County Commission to scale back the size of the project.

So far, Station Casinos has managed to silence one important voice in the fight -- City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs-McDonald, whose Ward 2 borders the casino site. In July Boggs-McDonald was named to the Station Casinos board and given a $56,000 salary.

The appointment has turned out to be important because even though this is officially a county matter, much of the opposition from residents is coming from those who live in Ward 2, such as Gabriel Lither, a deputy attorney general who has formed the group Summerlin Residents for Responsible Growth.

With Boggs-McDonald neutralized, Lither has turned to County Commissioner Mark James, whose district includes Red Rock Station.

James has stayed out of the fray as the Dec. 3 vote approaches, but it won't be long before he'll be asked to take sides. Lither told me Thursday that he has set up a meeting with James next Wednesday. And Station Casinos spokeswoman Lesley Pittman said her company plans to sit down with James in the near future.

James also can expect to hear from the Culinary Union, which helped get him elected last year. The union, which is lending its grass-roots machine to the opposition forces, suddenly has become sensitive to environmental issues as it battles for the right to represent Station Casinos workers.

Union leaders were on hand Thursday, when a coalition of Summerlin residents and environmental groups held a news conference at the proposed casino site announcing a campaign to flood James and his fellow commissioners with phone calls and e-mails opposing the scope of Red Rock Station. The union-created coalition has set up a website (www.SaveRedRock.org) to carry out the campaign.

Not to be outdone, Station Casinos President Lorenzo Fertitta has been putting his own pressure on the county commissioners.

Recently, Fertitta sent a letter to 20,000 Station slot club members in Summerlin, urging them to telephone or e-mail the commissioners to voice their support for the casino project.

It has become the ultimate test of political muscle versus political muscle, and we still have three weeks for both sides to do their flexing.

James said he's willing to sit down with the combatants and listen and then, in his words, "do the right thing" on Dec. 3.

He has to be looking forward to this vote about as much as an appointment for a root canal.

Earlier this year, you'll recall, James was slapped silly by both sides in another zoning battle affecting Red Rock Canyon. In that case home-builder Jim Rhodes was seeking to develop high-density housing tracts on the outskirts of the conservation area.

Eventually, James sided with the residents and environmentalists and led the charge to kill the project, but he came out of the fight with some political scars.

If history is any lesson, James would be the logical choice to broker a compromise on Red Rock Station -- before the fight gets out of hand.