Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

City Council might give special panel the heave-ho

There are rumblings that some city leaders would like to get rid of the Recommending Committee, which reviews proposed ordinances before they go the City Council.

The feeling among some council members is that the committee, which has no power to do anything but make recommendations, is redundant and time consuming without producing much benefit. Any item that goes before the Recommending Committee, which consists of two council members, also receives a hearing before the full council.

A year ago the council killed the Real Estate Committee for the same reason.

But Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, who sits on the Recommending Committee with Councilman Steve Ross, argues it is useful because it gives the public another opportunity to weigh in on proposed changes to city laws.

"It's also additional time for staff and council to fine-tune things," she said.

Unlike the Real Estate Committee, the Recommending Committee would be more difficult to kill - or would at least take longer to do so - because it is mandated by the City Charter. That means that either city voters or the state Legislature would have to OK changing the charter to eliminate the Recommending Committee.

The Recommending Committee, like the Real Estate Committee before it, meets roughly every other Tuesday. The meetings are sparsely attended, with the half dozen or so city officials required to be there often making up the majority of the people in the room.

But occasionally Recommending Committee meetings attract a small crowd and prompt city staff to change proposed ordinances before taking them to the full council.

That, however, does not justify the panel's continued existence, in the view of Councilman Steve Wolfson, who served on both committees for about a year.

"Ninety-nine percent of the items are routine and it's a waste of time," Wolfson said. The other 1 percent still will be sufficiently addressed at the regular council meeting if the committee is disbanded, he said.

"We still have the safety valve of the council meeting," Wolfson said.

Wolfson said he is 30 to 60 days from deciding whether he will ask the council to adopt more stringent rules regarding the conversions of apartments to condominiums.

In November, the council decided against imposing a moratorium on conversions while city staff worked on new restrictions. Since then the council has approved plans to convert about 3,400 apartments to condominiums. There are pending applications for about another 200 conversions.

Wolfson, who raised concerns about the steady flow of apartment-to-condominium conversions six months ago, said the influx of conversion applications was probably caused by the fear that the council could reconsider a moratorium. But Wolfson said he's not overly concerned in part because the approvals expire after two years if the conversions have not occurred.

City staff is working on an ordinance that would require the council to grant a special-use permit for conversions, which would allow the council to deny applications based on whether members believe a conversion is good for the community. Now, conversion decisions are supposed to be limited to simply whether the change complies with city codes.

But Wolfson said he is still not sure whether the added restrictions are needed.

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