Bush wasn’t just talking about delays at airport

Monday, Oct. 1, 2007 | 7 a.m.

Q: In addition to the usual airplanes and smog, what else was in the air Thursday at McCarran International Airport?

A little bit of irony.

As President Bush met with transportation officials to discuss a fix for the problem of airline delays, his right-hand man's visit to Las Vegas caused airline delays.

Vice President Dick Cheney flew in for a lunchtime fundraiser at the home of Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson.

As Cheney posed for pictures (cost: $2,500) to raise money for the Republican Party, some travelers at McCarran were delayed because of his appearance. One Southwest Airlines passenger scheduled for a noon flight to Reno reported an hour-and-a-half delay.

"Operations were impacted during his arrival and departure ," airport spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez said.

She couldn't give additional details. You know, national security.

Earlier in the week, Clark County officials got some expected bad news on those pricey green tax breaks.

If you'll remember, the state Legislature approved tax breaks in 2005 for environmentally friendly developments. Then last spring, analysts realized that the cost for the state could reach $1 billion over 10 years. Yikes! So, legislators this year scaled back the tax breaks.

Since then, Clark County has been crunching numbers to get a better idea of just how much the breaks will cost.

The price tag?

More than half a billion dollars.

A county analysis of the revised bill puts the total loss of property and sales tax revenue at $514.6 million over the next 15 years. Most of that - $390.4 million - will be borne by Clark County.

"It's frightening," County Commission Chairman Rory Reid said.

Those figures assume that each project that applies for the tax breaks gets the full property tax abatement of 35 percent. Under the law, developers can qualify for smaller abatements .

Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis ran the numbers for the county. He said the losses might grow if other projects apply for the tax breaks.

"These will not be the last to qualify for the abatement," he said. "The future is certainly not clear."

Meanwhile, Commissioners Chris Giunchigliani, Tom Collins and Lawrence Weekly are looking for some changes to the way the county handles code enforcement. They want problems such as junk-filled yards and graffiti addressed more quickly.

How many code enforcement employees does the county have?

Fourteen.

They handle more than 6,000 complaints a year.

Giunchigliani said she wants the county to move toward a neighborhood services model, more like Las Vegas'. The first step in that direction, which commissioners plan to discuss Tuesday, would be decentralizing some code enforcement employees and dividing them up based on geographical areas, Giunchigliani said.

The idea is that code enforcement officers would be more familiar with - and responsive to - the neighborhoods to which they are assigned.

"I don't think we should be complaint-driven. I think we should be eyes- and ears-driven," Giunchigliani said.

The discussion Tuesday is expected to include the question of whether the county should hire additional code enforcement staff.

That's likely to rub up against some tough financial realities.

"We understand we have fiscal constraints," Giunchigliani said. "If we can focus the resources we have now, then during next budget cycle we can talk about additional resources."