Issue of valley’s growth at center of election

Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 | 10:54 a.m.

Polls have consistently shown that population growth and its effect on the quality of life in Southern Nevada rank high among residents' concerns, but few -- if any -- politicians have explicitly called for brakes on the pace of growth here.

Assemblyman David Goldwater, the Democrat running in a bruising campaign for the District F seat on the Las Vegas Valley's west side, is an exception. Since he announced his candidacy, he has pushed for "slow growth." His opponent, incumbent Republican Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, argues that Goldwater's position is short on specifics and could lead to economic hemorrhaging.

Hal Rothman, a UNLV history professor and a member of Clark County's Growth Management Task Force, said Goldwater's call for slower growth could be a watershed moment.

"The impetus for any change of patterns of growth will have to start with the county commission," Rothman said. "I'm surprised that more candidates for county commission haven't done so (called for slower growth). It's refreshing."

Rothman's perspective parallels some of the environmental and conservation voices in the region, who are increasingly concerned that Southern Nevada is nearing its "carrying capacity" and that further growth, at least in the way it has progressed in Las Vegas thus far, will result in ever more serious effects on the surrounding desert as well as the people who already live here.

Developer Jay Bingham, a former county commissioner, is also a member of the growth task force, which was established early this year by the commission with the impetus of Commissioner Rory Reid and former commissioner Mark James -- the man whose resignation resulted in Boggs McDonald's appointment to the commission.

Bingham said everyone is concerned about growth. It is how to respond to that concern and manage the growth that sometimes divides people in the community.

"Would everyone like to see growth slow down a little? I think so," Bingham said. "But if you don't have some growth, you're going to die."

Already, the lack of available land for development has slowed down the pace of construction of new homes, but that has come with a sometimes hefty price tag for new and resold homes.

"It has sent the price of land through the roof," Bingham said.

He agrees that growth's effect is an important quality-of-life issue for many people in the valley.

"There's a lot of people in town taking polls, and this 'no growth' is always high in the polls," Bingham said. "What the polls don't ask is whether they would support slow growth if it would hurt them economically.

"When it affects the person working at Wal-Mart or the lumber store, all those jobs start to slow down," he said. "The greatest quality-of-life issue is every Friday. It's paychecks. There are other places in the nation that don't have our quality of life."

Goldwater's television campaign ads have included pictures of traffic-choked roads, an increasingly common experience for motorists in Las Vegas.

But Goldwater himself said his call for slow growth has led to a lopsided imbalance in campaign contributions, the often critical fuel that keeps campaigns rolling through Election Day. Through the end of August, contributions to Goldwater totaled about $224,000. Boggs McDonald collected close to $877,000, much of it from developers and others involved in building and selling new homes.

Boggs McDonald said there is a reason she is getting that support.

"I would like to hear the plan, exactly, specifically, how he intends to do that (slow growth)," she said. "The only tool we would have as Clark County commissioners would be to stop issuing building permits, and that would have a devastating impact on our economy."

Those who would be hurt by such a response would not be just developers, Boggs McDonald said.

"It's the people that put up the drywall, it's the electrician, it's the pipefitters," she said. "These are the people who get impacted first. I think it's always the little guy that gets hit first and hardest by that type of proposal."

Goldwater counters that he has had a consistent message on how he would slow growth. His goal would be to ensure that every new development had sufficient schools, road capacity, police and firefighters and other infrastructure. Without it, he would use the county's land-use approval process to block development.

"It's schools, traffic, air, water and public safety," Goldwater said. "It's really a cultural difference between the way I would do it, and the way things have been done in this district."

Boggs McDonald points to her crackdown on Rhodes Homes, which forced the company to agree to site a new elementary school adjacent to Rhodes Ranch, as proof of her willingness to take on builders. She said her opponent's interest in growth issues is new-found.

"It's interesting that David has had an election year epiphany," she said. "As the (Assembly) chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, he said growth was not on his agenda.

"He was the sole 'no' vote on the creation of the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority" while on the committee, Boggs McDonald says. The strategic planning authority has since become the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition.

Boggs McDonald, who served on and worked with both groups as a city employee and then city councilwoman, says those groups were important to deal with issues of regional growth.

"There were a lot of things that dealt with growth that came out of that exercise, not the least of which is the Regional Planning Coalition, which takes a regional perspective to look at growth," she says. "He had his chance as the chairman of (the Assembly) Infrastructure (Committee) to make a difference as it relates to planning for the future."

"He had a chance to deal with growth issues and he dropped the ball."

Goldwater says he worked for substantive growth-control measures while in the Assembly, among them the proposal from Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, to restrict development with a "ring around the valley" in 1997.

"I chaired the committee that passed Sen. Titus' proposal," he says. "I voted against the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority because it didn't have enough teeth. I have been proven correct.

"That committee has basically done nothing about growth, and the county has had to take over to form the growth task force," Goldwater says.

"It's unfortunate that the state Legislature has had to get into matters of land use, but because of people like Lynette McDonald, who has served in local government, the state Legislature has had to pass things like the Red Rock protection act and the ring around Las Vegas. That's why I want to run for local government, to change the culture."

Rothman says he believes a victory by Goldwater would show that people are motivated to cast their votes because of growth issues, but a defeat would not necessarily mean that it is not an important issue.

"This race is so nasty, the nastiness is on the level of the presidential election," he says. "It has nothing to do with issues. The loss of one or another candidate in this election will have more to do with the whether the nasty ad buys have worked or not.

"If he (Goldwater) succeeds it may well turn into a referendum on growth, but if he loses, I don't think it will be because he brought up growth."

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