Late deal on roads fails to connect

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Friday, June 1, 2007 | 6:50 a.m.

CARSON CITY - No, it wasn't the Army-McCarthy hearings, but there was a little drama if only because the story kept changing every hour, much as it has all session.

A deal for new and wider roads has collapsed. The deal's been revived! The deal's a deal, except it's not.

Finally, a much-postponed Assembly transportation hearing began at supper time, and there were Gov. Jim Gibbons and representatives of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and its advertising firm, R&R Partners, and they were in the same room, and they were in agreement on a deal.

Backstory: A blue ribbon panel says the state needs at least $3.8 billion to pay for roads between now and 2015.

A couple weeks ago Gibbons proposed using future hotel-room tax money set to go to the LVCVA, which runs the famous ads about Las Vegas, and diverting it to roads. The state's powerful tourism industry, including LVCVA Chairman and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, panned the plan, and the whole transpo vibe got real tense.

"I hoped my plan would generate a dialogue, a discussion," Gibbons said at Thursday's hearing.

The dialogue often felt more like a monologue in the Legislature, where leaders of both parties and the tourism industry told the governor in frank terms what he could do with his plan. The image of Las Vegas has been finely honed, and now is no time to mess with it, they argued.

Gibbons has a problem when it comes to proposing anything new: He's pledged not to raise taxes.

The Legislature has its own problem, though: It doesn't want to go home without anything to show constituents who are stuck in traffic, but they don't have enough votes to override a Gibbons veto in the event they try to raise taxes.

So, everyone had a motive to make a deal. Legislative leaders told a wide-ranging group of industry lobbyists to cobble something together. They did so, but without input from the governor. When it was clear Gibbons would never accept a tax increase, they brought his people in this week.

Here's the result:

The LVCVA will contribute $20 million per year; some county property tax money currently used for capital projects will instead be used for roads; and money that goes to rental car companies to help them pay car registration fees will instead go to roads.

It amounts to a bit less than $1 billion between now and 2015, or well less than the $3.8 billion shortfall.

Most of the money will be focused on a few projects, or as Assembly Transportation Chairman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, called them in language worthy of Donald Trump, "mega and supermega projects." This means Interstate 15 and U.S. 95 in the south, and Interstate 80 and U.S. 395 up north.

Mass transit didn't come up.

With 100 more cars taking to Southern Nevada roads every day, the plan won't fully address transportation needs.

But lowering one's expectations can be so liberating.