Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.
A potential candidate for governor in 2006 is calling for the state government to take a bigger role in growth-related environmental issues, a move she said is likely.
Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, told a citizens board working on Clark County growth issues that the state government will likely play an increasingly important part in environmental issues related to growth.
Speaking at the regular monthly meeting of the Clark County Growth Management Task Force Tuesday, Titus, who has said she will run for governor in two years, told the group that the issues of air quality, water supply, land-use policies and transportation are important beyond the county line -- and beyond Nevada's state line.
"This is no longer a local issue," Titus said of growth. "This is very much an issue of state concern."
Las Vegas, Reno, Clark County's smaller cities and the rural areas now are all experiencing a rate of growth that tops the country for the state and the metropolitan area, she said.
"It's put a tremendous burden on the services and infrastructure provided by the state," Titus said. "Growth does not pay for growth."
Titus was the author of the 1997 proposal to put a growth boundary around Las Vegas similar to the one in place, and modified two years ago, in Portland, Ore. The "Ring Around the Valley" did not pass, but it set the stage for the first serious discussions about growth, she said.
Her effort has continued. In the last session, the Legislature passed Titus' bill to limit development in and around the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. In the next session, Titus said she will begin a discussion about development issues affecting Mount Charleston.
"Mount Charleston is being trashed even as we sit here," Titus said. "That is a treasure for Southern Nevada that we should not lose."
Other issues that the Legislature will have to look at include water supply for urban Clark County and mass transit, she said. The Legislature also will work on the property tax issue, she said.
As property values have soared, so have property taxes, and officials have proposed several caps to keep the rising tide of taxes down, Titus said. She noted that while Clark County Assessor Mark Schofield supports a 6 percent cap on rising property taxes, other elected officials have suggested far lower caps in the increases, moves that would threaten local revenues needed to keep pace with the demand for services engendered by growth.
Titus said following her presentation to the growth task force that sustainable growth and environmental issues will be a part of her gubernatorial campaign.
"I think these are important issues that affect the whole state, north and south," she said. "It's been part of my political agenda for a long time, so it's only natural that I would continue with it."
Titus' comments came as the task force discussed various strategies for improving air quality in the Las Vegas Valley, which is in a federal status of nonattainment for carbon monoxide pollution. Christine Robinson, director of the Clark County Department of Air Quality and Environmental Management, said the economic impacts of artificially halting growth have been discussed in detail, but not the impacts of poor air quality.
"One of the things that doesn't get talked about a lot but should be discussed are the very real economic consequences of not doing enough" for air quality, she said.
While measures taken to improve air quality have helped the valley avoid exceeding federal levels for carbon monoxide levels in five years, next month Clark County will officially be ranked as a "nonattainment area" for ozone, a component of smog. The area will have to develop a plan to control the potentially dangerous pollutant or face federal sanctions, which could include the loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding for local programs.
One strategy discussed, but not formally advanced Tuesday would be to require the sale of "clean" gasoline year-round. Cleaner-burning gas formulas are now required only in the wintertime months in Las Vegas.
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