Continued growth means more clout for Clark County

Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Seven in 10 Nevadans live in the lower 7 percent of the state, new figures from the state demographer's office show, and Southern Nevada's clout seems likely to continue growing.

Clark County now has 71 percent of the state's population, compared with 69 percent a year ago, State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle said. The county grew 4.6 percent between July 2002 and July 2003, compared with a statewide growth rate of 4.1 percent.

Eric Herzik, political scientist and interim dean of the University of Nevada, Reno's College of Liberal Arts, said Clark County "is the big dog, and they keep getting bigger."

The new county-by-county population counts also showed that growth is accelerating again after dipping after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the recession.

After averaging 6 percent from 1986 through July 2001, the county's growth fell to 4.3 percent in 2002. The state's growth rate, about 5 percent a year in the same period, fell to 3.4 percent that year.

"We still as a state tend to be growing pretty quickly, faster than any other state," Hardcastle said.

But with Clark County getting bigger more rapidly than other areas, residents can expect to see an increasing share of state workers located in the Las Vegas Valley to serve its 1.6 million residents.

Already with the Legislature out of session, Gov. Kenny Guinn spends a lot more time in Las Vegas, where he owns a home.

He won't be the only one. State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said the continued growth in Southern Nevada means "a ton of employees will have to go down there." He said there are already large numbers of field workers and middle management staff in Southern Nevada.

Another state building may need to be constructed next to the Sawyer State Office Building to meet the demand, he said, though most field staff in Southern Nevada are in branch offices to better serve the nearby neighborhoods.

And though its share of registered voters doesn't match the population -- only 65 percent of Southern Nevadans are signed up to vote -- Clark County still is a force to contend with politically, experts say.

"In terms of raw political power, Clark County is where it's at," Herzik said, adding that arguably the Clark County Commission is more important than the state Legislature. "Washoe County for all intents and purposes is a cow county."

He noted that two former legislators, Myrna Williams and Mark James, are now on the Clark County Commission, and two current Assembly members Tom Collins and Vonne Chowning are giving up their seats to run for the county board this year.

Fred Lokken, political science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, said the political power has been shifting for decades to Southern Nevada.

During reapportionment in the 2001 Legislature, Clark County gained enough seats so that in both the Assembly and Senate, Southern Nevada legislators hold two-thirds majority.

That makes Nevada similar to Illinois, where Cook County, home to Chicago, is dominant, and New York, where New York City controls the state, Lokken said.

But Lokken said Nevada's rural counties and Washoe County, where Reno is, aren't left out because lawmakers from Southern Nevada find it difficult to work together. So far, the Clark County legislators have not voted as a bloc.

Lokken said Washoe County should maintain its seats in Nevada's next reapportionment in 2011 but it will be a "greater challenge" for rural counties to hold on to their seats.

The demographer's annual population estimates are used to distribute tax money between counties and cities, based on the number of residents.

The population growth fuels economic growth, economist Keith Schwer said.

"With the growth we have, we also have to build housing, employment, schools, with that growth we've been having comes a lot of other spending," said Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

And that, in turn, fuels more population growth, Hardcastle said.

"Primarily job creation, that's what's been happening in Southern Nevada to cause growth," he said. "Those jobs helped keep things moving forward." That growth also comes with a price, local officials noted.

A growing population demands more employees such as police, firefighters, social workers and others just to maintain the existing level of service, Clark County Manager Thom Reilly said. For the county and other local governments, another challenge exists in "building new infrastructure and rehabilitating old infrastructure."

The availability of water, air quality and the protection of sensitive environmental resources also are part of the discussion, Reilly said. Even the escalating cost of new homes is part of the larger discussion about growth, he said.

"Before, we would just look at growth and the availability of land," Reilly said, referring to discussions of a decade ago. "Now I don't think you can talk about growth without talking about the other issues."

Clark County has already taken some steps to better manage growth, such as adopting new master-planning rules that make long-term plans harder to change, Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said.

In addition, voters in 2002 supported and the Legislature passed funding for transportation and mass transit improvements, he said. Developers are paying more to build home and subdivisions, part of an effort to make growth pay for itself, he added.

As the Southern Nevada Water Authority deals with a drought that has required conservation measures, it takes the growth in stride, spokesman Vincent Alberta said.

"This isn't a surprise," he said. "We incorporate growth projections into our resource planning, which is analyzed and updated annually."

Still, even with the growth, he said, the conservation measures have helped the larger population use less water.

In 2002 the Las Vegas Valley used about 325,000 acre-feet of water, compared with only 275,000 acre-feet last year, he said. An acre-foot supplies water to a family of four for about a year

"The drought has made us more water efficient and water conscious, understanding that water is very precious in the desert and every now and then nature will throw you a curve ball, as it has," he said.

The water authority has commissioned a study to look at the valley's growth and its relationship to water supply, which he expects to be done this spring, he said.

Reilly cautioned that simple answers to the challenges posed by growth -- ignoring the issue, or calling for an end to growth, are not easy.

"It's very complex, and there's implications all around."

Officials expect Las Vegas to continue to outpace the state's growth.

Clark County's population is projected to reach 2 million around the year 2010 and to continue growing past that.

The city of Las Vegas this year took actions to ensure land for years of development. The city moved to annex 1,600 acres around the mouth of Kyle Canyon, and set the groundwork for annexing another 7,600 acres north of the current city of Las Vegas limits.

In Summerlin the city recently approved an agreement with Hughes Corp. that will allow development on 8,000 acres west of the Las Vegas Beltway, north of Charleston and south of Cheyenne, expected to be home to an estimated 30,000 people within decades.

Development of 1,900 acres of former BLM land in North Las Vegas, called Aliante, is under way, a partnership of Del Webb and American Nevada, a company owned by the Greenspun family, which owns the Las Vegas Sun.

"I'm not a big fan of this level of growth," Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said. "I would prefer to see something more moderate and steady. But we can't all live in Boulder City, where they limit growth.

"However, we can on a regional basis attempt to manage the growth and attempt to protect the quality of life as much as possible," he said.

Sun reporters

Launce Rake, Sito Negron, Jean Reid Norman and Heather Rawlyk contributed to this story.

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