Roads head toward dead end

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Thursday, May 10, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

CARSON CITY - Momentum is working against any big road funding package coming out of the Legislature, even as Gov. Jim Gibbons prepares to unveil his own plan as early as today.

A state commission has projected that Nevada requires $3.8 billion between now and 2015 to deal with growth, including the 100 new cars that join Southern Nevada roads every day.

Those abstract figures are more real for Las Vegans driving on the beltway, where commute times continue to grow .

Still, a substantial infusion of money for roads faces high hurdles: a less-than-rosy budget outlook, the governor's political problems and his aversion to any tax or fee increase, a sharp conflict over transportation among and between some of the Strip's most powerful players, and the requirement that both houses of the Legislature obtain two-thirds of the votes to pass a tax increase or override a Gibbons veto.

As part of his plan, Gibbons will propose diverting a portion of hotel room tax money that currently goes to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and shift it to road construction, according to a source close to the governor.

In 2006 that amounted to more than $200 million. That's money that goes toward the agency's now-famous ad campaign on behalf of Las Vegas.

The shift would allow Gibbons to abide by his no-tax pledge while still offering his own plan for traffic. Given an approval rating hovering around 30 percent, he can't afford to break his pledge, which would eliminate his remaining base of conservative Republicans.

The room-tax diversion would face potent opposition, however. The Nevada Resort Association, which represents Strip casinos, raced into action Wednesday. Also marshaling forces is the LVCVA's ad firm, R&R Partners, which has some of the most powerful lobbyists in the state. Southern Nevada mayors and Clark County commissioners are already lining up against it, as well.

Greg Ferraro, representing the resort association, said 53 percent of the money the LVCVA gets from the room tax goes right out the door to schools, parks and transportation.

The rest goes to support and promote the state's most important industry, he said. "The state's tourism industry has been a strong supporter of solutions to community problems," but shouldn't shoulder the burden alone, he said.

(Incidentally, Ferraro was a consultant to Gibbons during the 2006 campaign, a sign of the many divided loyalties in this fight. Another example: The room tax idea is thought to have originated from Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson, a Gibbons ally and long an opponent of the LVCVA.)

Alternatives to a room tax diversion, such as tolls, privatized roads or a gas tax increase, seem unlikely to get out of the Legislature.

Gibbons is using part of the state's budget surplus for a $170 million upgrade of Interstate 15 between the Spaghetti Bowl and Craig Road. The rest of the surplus has largely evaporated.

That leaves taxes: Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, favors a weight-distance tax on trucks that would raise $1.3 billion over 10 years. Republican Minority Leader Garn Mabey has said he's willing to consider a tax package for roads, as have a number of Republican senators.

Other possibilities include an increase in driver's license fees, and slowing the depreciation schedule on car registrations, so that, for instance, registration fees for an aging car wouldn't fall as quickly as they do now.

Michael Geeser, a lobbyist for AAA Nevada, said he believes that those options, plus the weight-distance tax, are all still on the table.

"The transportation hearings that laid out the crisis were meaningful and stuck with people," he said.

But a number of anti-tax legislators, including Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, said they're not hearing about the issue from constituents, even though business interests have recently been running radio and billboard ads in Southern Nevada encouraging people to call their legislators about traffic and new roads.

The lack of public fire has some wondering whether the issue has always been more important to lobbyists than to the public.

Buckley scoffed at that notion: "You don't have to get e-mails about it. All you have to do is sit in traffic."

Still, taxes would require 28 votes in the Assembly and14 in the Senate, to override a presumed Gibbons veto. The votes are there in the Assembly, but may not be in the Senate . There, Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, who's shown a willingness to raise taxes and fees if he thinks they're warranted, would have to persuade Republican colleagues to override a first-term Republican governor on a tax increase.

On the face of it, that sounds unlikely.

Democrats aren't a given, either. Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, is still wounded from her run for governor, when she was branded "Dina Taxes."

Most senators are waffling and waiting to see what a final package would look like, and it's unknown whether there are 14 votes.

The votes might be there if they act fast: Chuck Muth, a libertarian activist and no-tax pledge enforcer, is out of town for two weeks.