New panel ponders its power over neighborhood casinos

Monday, April 4, 2005 | 9:46 a.m.

Clark County held its first meeting of a group slated to write new rules governing the design of new neighborhood casinos, but the group members stumbled early into questions of what it could and could not do, and what, exactly, is such a casino.

Several projects by Station Casinos Inc., the giant among local gaming companies, have generated concern because of their location, height, lighting and design.

Red Rock Station on West Charleston Boulevard is under construction now after a contentious fight before the Clark County Commission.

The company also faced opposition for its design proposals for Durango Station near Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway.

Stung by the sometimes rancorous debate, the County Commission in January asked for input from a committee to look at the design issues. Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, a former Station Casinos board member, proposed the group.

Boggs McDonald said she was frustrated with controversies that stemmed not from the locations of the proposed hotels, which were set by state law in 1998, but over design.

Some of those who attended the meeting, members of the group and a handful of observers, asked why the county convened the group if nothing could be done about the locations of neighborhood casinos.

Chuck Arkell, a co-founder of Summerlin Residents for Responsible Growth, a group that fought to cut a third of the height off Red Rock Station, said he is concerned that the group's efforts would be "a waste of time."

"It just doesn't make any sense," Arkell, an observer, told the committee at the close of the meeting. "Why would you spend all this time if you can't impact anything?"

Chuck Pulsipher, a Clark County Comprehensive Planning manager, told the committee and the observers that was not completely true. The group could not, he said, determine the placement of new hotels, but it could have an impact on the design of the projects that are not yet built.

Carolyn Edwards, a "residential" representative and community activist on the 11-member group, said the issues that the committee will tackle over the next several months are important.

Casinos, she said, can bring many people into otherwise residential communities.

"These impacts are significant on neighborhoods," Edwards said.

The group was to come back with design recommendations within 90 days from the county commission's approving the group in January, but Pulsipher said more time will be needed. He said the county staff will ask the commission for more time at this week's commission meeting.

The first meeting of the group, scheduled for mid-February, was abruptly canceled because the county planned for the group to meet behind closed doors, a violation of the state's open-meeting law rules.