Planned talks on locals casinos nixed

Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 | 10:53 a.m.

Clark County government abruptly canceled a planned meeting Friday of a group which was to draft recommendations for the design of new neighborhood casinos.

County staffers said the meeting appeared to violate the state open meeting law. The meeting of 11 residents, among them citizen-activists and gaming executives, was to be behind closed doors. That prompted complaints from at least one person, who said the discussion on the design for neighborhood casinos should be out in the open.

Last month Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, a former member of the board of Station Casinos Inc., asked staff to create an advisory committee to come up with recommendations for the new casino standards. Boggs McDonald was responding to controversies over the size and design of Station projects on West Charleston Boulevard and at Durango Drive and Interstate 215.

With 13 casinos in the Las Vegas market and five more sites approved for development as new neighborhood casinos in 1998 legislation, Station Casinos is the strong man of the neighborhood gaming industry.

Lisa Mayo-deRiso, a community activist with a history of fighting such casinos, said the working group proposed by staff and county commissioners has too many people with Station connections and too few who would represent the interests of the community. In any case, she said the group's discussions should be public.

"At least we should be able to hear what they're talking about," Mayo-deRiso said. "The fact that they are making it so difficult, and you look at the makeup of the group, I don't think it passes the smell test.

"This neighborhood casino issue is really important, now and to the future of the valley. The citizens should have the ability to watch if they want. The open meetings law is there for a reason."

Mayo-deRiso said an inordinate number of people associated with local neighborhood casino powerhouse Station Casinos Inc. would be represented in the group.

Among the 11 people invited onto the group to discuss neighborhood casinos are Cedric Crear, former marketing director for Station Casinos; Matt Heinhold, a lawyer for the company; and Terry Murphy, a consultant on land-use and political issues who has worked for the company.

Station Casinos Vice President Lesley Pittman, however, said the company has only one representative on the group: Heinhold.

"We have one representative and that's what we asked for," Pittman said.

She said it is important for the company to have a seat at the table when the subject of what she called "locals casinos" comes up.

"We're the largest locals casino operator in Southern Nevada," Pittman said. "We employ about 12,000 Southern Nevadans. The focal point of this committee is going to be something that could impact our business.

"We also lend a perspective on the matter. That more than anything is why we should be at the table. It's important that if your going to be discussing locals casinos, that it would make sense to have someone who operates those kinds of projects at the table."

Boggs McDonald also noted that Mayo-deRiso has worked with the Culinary Union in opposing Station Casinos' efforts to win land-use approvals, including for the site off Durango Drive. The union has battled the non-union company on many fronts, and has added its voice to efforts to block land-use approvals needed by the company.

Mayo-deRiso's absence from the group discussing the issue is on purpose, the commissioner said.

"Lisa Mayo was not asked (to be part of the group), not by me or by others, because it is obvious she has a personal agenda," Boggs McDonald said. "In my view she's a paid operative of the Culinary Union and wants to disrupt the process."

Boggs McDonald noted the group included several community representatives and a representative from Boyd Gaming, a Station Casinos' competitor.

The county's decision to scrub the meeting planned for Friday came not over questions of the makeup of the group, but over a failure to notify the public of the time, place and purpose of the meeting.

Chuck Pulsipher, Clark County planning manager, said the District Attorney's Office advised the staff Friday that the meeting was not properly noticed.

While the Comprehensive Planning Department has held closed-door meetings on land-use issues to receive input from the public before, the difference between this group and the other groups is that the inspiration and direction to create the group came from the county commission, the county's elected governing body.

"It has been determined that these meetings should be subjected to the sunshine of public scrutiny," county spokesman Erik Pappa said. "Staff routinely holds meetings that aren't noticed and aren't subject to the open meeting law. We conduct so much business that you have to figure out which are subject to the open meeting law and which aren't.

"Because this came from the county commission, it is only natural that these meetings be subject to the open meetings law. This didn't come from people on staff but came from the commission."

Boggs McDonald said the commission always intended the meetings on the issue to be a small group, but that the discussion be open to public scrutiny. The commission always envisioned a process similar to that underway for the Clark County Growth Management Task Force, in which a group meets and discusses issues in public, she said.

"We don't have anything we would want to hide," Boggs McDonald said. "I don't think anyone from the county commission knew that it was going to be closed at all."

Boggs McDonald said that although the recommendations would ultimately come from the working group, the public would have multiple opportunities to add to the discussion, including several open houses and meetings of town advisory boards, the planning commission and the county commission itself.

"There will be ample opportunities for public input."

Carolyn Edwards, a citizen-activist who has spoken for smaller neighborhood casinos in the earlier land-use fights, is one of those selected for the working group. Edwards said she also wanted the process to be open.

Edwards said Nevada law, contained in Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 241, clearly called for the group's work to be public.

"Any subcommittee created by the county commission has to follow the law," she said.

But even if the law didn't call for the public process, the work should be conducted in the light of day because of who the issues affect, Edwards said.

"It's about neighborhoods and the people from neighborhoods."

Danny Thompson, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer and a group member, said he agreed that the group should meet and discuss the issues in public. He noted that as a a former Assembly member, he worked on the public meetings law.

"We're talking about something that people should know about."