City Council honors Genzer, longtime chief planner

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

Las Vegas chief planner Robert Genzer was slightly roasted Wednesday morning by the City Council, which honored him for being named Planner of the Year by a group representing 12 Western states.

Before his recognition, the city honored the group that developed a golf match between firefighters and police officers in April. The winner of that match received a large trophy.

"Bob, I just want you to look at the trophy that the fire department won in about two hours, " said Mayor Oscar Goodman, contrasting that with the smiles and handshakes Genzer, who spent 30-plus years with the city, got from his colleagues.

Genzer said it's been his honor to watch the city grow from about 60 square miles and 135,000 people when he started in 1970 to more than 117 square miles and nearly 521,000 residents now. In addition, the Planning Department won awards for three projects during the August event of the Western chapters of the American Planning Association.

In other City Council action Wednesday:

The city's resolution renaming its portion of the monorail after Broadbent -- who died in early August -- follows a similar action by the private Las Vegas Monorail Co. and the Clark County Commission. Broadbent is considered responsible for the success of the project, the only privately funded transit system in the nation.

"Those in Las Vegas for any amount of time at all recognize the name," Ward 4 Councilman Larry Brown said.