Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LV City Council meeting called off

Several people showed up this morning to a Las Vegas City Council meeting that was canceled because of a staff error.

The cancellation was a first in recent memory and an inconvenience for the dozens of residents, developers, lawyers and staff members who attend the sessions. It pushes back the implementation of several ordinances the city either was to approve or introduce.

Among those were an ordinance setting traffic signal impact fees that was due to be adopted and introduction of increases to sewer bills and connection fees.

City Clerk Roni Ronemus said a handful of people showed up for various items, and she and Mayor Oscar Goodman greeted them and told them the meeting had been canceled.

Nobody seemed overly concerned, Ronemus said.

Goodman apologized Tuesday for the cancellation. "It's certainly an inconvenience to our constituents and I apologize," he said after notices went out about the cancellation.

City matters that were supposed to have been dealt with today will now have to wait until Oct. 29.

Today's meeting was canceled after employees in the City Clerk's office realized notices had not been properly posted in five locations. In two locations, in the City Hall plaza and at the clerk's office, it had been posted late. At three other locations it had not been posted at all.

"State law says it has to be posted in three locations besides City Hall," city spokesman David Riggleman said. "We had some people off who normally handle that, and it didn't get taken care of."

The agenda for a typical council meeting has more than 100 items and lasts all day. It is split into two sessions, with the afternoon being taken up by planning issues -- rezoning requests, master plan submissions, and other land use matters.

The public generally attends in large numbers at the beginning of the meeting, when ceremonial items are taken up -- recognition of a city employee or a civic group, for example -- and in the afternoon, when neighborhood issues involving land use often draw crowds.

Other than a handful of people who regularly attend the meetings as observers and sometime participants, the members of the public who show up for the meetings usually have specific business for which they devote time. For example, the council considers granting business licenses, for which there were five applicants listed on today's agenda.

But the largest single part of the meeting is the afternoon. Today's agenda listed 30 land use requests, although some issues cover multiple items.

Jennifer Lazovich, a lawyer with Kummer Kaempfer Bonner & Renshaw, who works on land issues, said the city did well to give notice as soon as it found out about the posting problem, which was mid-afternoon Tuesday.

"The most challenging part of this is getting the word out to those who aren't applicants," such as neighbors, Lazovich said. "I found out very quickly, I think I found out within half an hour of it getting out. And if we have neighbors involved, we'll let them know ... so the phone tree actually does work quite well."

She said a delay could cost property owners who need certain government actions -- rezoning, or master plan approval, for example -- to finish a deal.

"In this case, the clients I talked to (about) the agenda didn't indicate this affected them," Lazovich said.

While a League of Cities spokesman could not immediately give a number for how often such a cancellation happens, a quick computer search indicates it's rare.

A search using the keywords "city council" and "canceled meeting" turned up fewer than 15 examples -- including cancellations because of holidays -- in a database of more than 8,000 publications that goes back 15 years. That included a meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, to discuss sewer issues.

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