Helldorado lives another day

Dan Kulin

Thursday, March 16, 2006 | 6:49 a.m.

The Helldorado Days Parade will live on for another year thanks in part to the Las Vegas City Council putting up $65,000 to cover some of the costs of the May 13 parade.

Las Vegas Elks Lodge 1468 is organizing the Helldorado Days festivities this year, with most of the activities, such as rodeos and a Western village exhibit, scheduled to be at the new South Coast casino's arena during the first two weeks of May. A complete schedule is available at www.lvhelldoradodays.com.

The parade is considered the highlight of the Helldorado Days activities, which began in 1934. The parades and other Helldorado events faded away in 1997 and 1998, then were revived last year as part of the city's centennial celebration.

City officials and others praised the parade's return as a popular community event that celebrated the area's past, and vowed to again make the parade an annual tradition.

The city funds will pay for bleachers, security and cleanup of the downtown parade.

"Last year was overwhelming," Elks Executive Director Duane LaDuke said. "There were a lot of good memories, and anyone who's been here for any length of time was thrilled it came back."

Councilman Lawrence Weekly added: "Helldorado was something that many of our pioneers enjoyed.

It reminds people what it used to be like."

The members of Las Vegas' largest city employees' union overwhelmingly supported a proposed five-year contract that would give them pay raises between 3 percent and 5 percent each year.

Las Vegas City Employees Association members voted on the deal Wednesday, and reportedly more than 90 percent supported the proposed contract, expected to take effect when the existing one expires in June.

The City Council is to vote on the contract on April 5.

The contract would give the roughly 1,500 union members cost-of-living pay raises of 4 percent in the coming fiscal year, followed by 3.5 percent in the second through fourth years. In the fifth year, the pay increases would be 3 percent.

Union members also will retain their current health benefits.

Union President Tommy Ricketts said the negotiations went smoothly, a sharp contrast to the talks that led to the existing contract. Four years ago, after the union and city clashed over cost-of-living wage increases, an arbitrator ultimately decided the issues.

The Employees Association is one of four unions that represent city workers. The city's firefighters, Metro Police and the detention center staff have their own unions.

The city has 3,158 employees, 2,783 of whom are full-time workers.

Las Vegas tossed the financially troubled Economic Opportunity Board a $200,000 life preserver on Wednesday.

The City Council voted 7-0 to give the nonprofit organization the grant, which comes with no conditions.

The city's action follows the Clark County Commission's decision to give the EOB $250,000. The county funds, however, must be paid back, and also are contingent upon a county review of the organization's finances.

Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who also serves on the EOB's board, said the funds were needed to help offset the EOB's budget deficit and help the organization continue providing assistance to senior citizens, child care for poor families and drug abuse treatment programs.

The EOB has suffered years of federal reviews accusing it of financial mismanagement and shoddy treatment of the poor.

But Weekly said Wednesday that the "other side of the story" still needs to be told.

Mayor Oscar Goodman asked whether the city funds were "going into a bottomless pit."

And Weekly said he did not believe they were.