LOOKING IN ON: CITY HALL:

Ross’ green light has shades of gray

Just-released opinion warns of potential conflicts

Mon, May 5, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Tree Coverage

Almost a year after Steven Ross was given the nod to work as a union lobbyist while serving on the Las Vegas City Council, the Nevada Ethics Commission has released a written version of that advisory opinion.

Ross represents Ward 6, in the city’s booming northwest sector. In May 2007, he sought the Ethics Commission’s advice because he wanted to run for the job of secretary-treasurer of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council. The commission gave him the green light to seek the job and in July he won the seat.

However, the written opinion, dated April 21, clearly spells out the potential conflicts Ross might face.

“Contractors and other private businesses often come before the council on matters requiring council action,” the opinion said. “These may be entities that Ross has contacted for (the Trades Council) in an effort to encourage their use of organized labor.

“Although abstention may be a safe harbor, the commission cautions Ross that frequent abstention deprives his constituents of a voice in matters which come before the council.”

The commission’s advice on how to stay clean? Seek the counsel of the city attorney, go back and read this opinion again, look at previous commission opinions or even return for another advisory opinion “when such matters that may pose a conflict between Ross’s public duties as councilman and his private interests come before the council.”

•••

As the days grow hotter and longer, there never seems to be enough shade.

Want to know just how little — or how much?

The city already has done quite a bit of work in that area, defining percentages of “canopy” cover throughout the city. As expected, older sections of town have the highest percentages of canopy cover — ground covered by tree canopies.

Ward 1 (Lois Tarkanian’s ward) had the most coverage, 13.83 percent. The lowest coverage was in the newest section of the city, Ward 6 (Ross), at 3.72 percent.

It’s not much. Then again, we live in a desert.

To further an effort to develop an urban forestry plan, the City Council will consider this week accepting a matching grant of $38,000 from the Nevada Forestry Division. With that grant, the city would be required to contribute $10,000. The Southern Nevada Water Authority also would contribute $10,000.

If the grant is approved, Paul Grimyser, a city planner, said the inventory will take stock of a tree’s health, species, number of stems, canopy width and other characteristics.

A later report would identify the benefits of those trees, including how much carbon they absorb from the air and their value in storm water management.

“That will give us an idea of how to write an urban forestry plan,” he said.

•••

Although Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman verbally eviscerated its design last year, the city’s official seal is headed for the big leagues.

In a consent agenda item, the City Council is likely to give permission to The World Book Encyclopedia to use images of the Las Vegas flag and seal in print, online and on digital products.

The images would appear in an encyclopedia entry about Las Vegas.

That means the seal Goodman loves to hate is going to be propagated even more.

During a news conference in July, the mayor looked at the seal, which features a plane flying past a high-rise, Hoover Dam (which is not in the city) and rectangles that look embarrassingly like billboards.

In sum, the mayor said back then: “It’s the worst city seal I’ve ever seen.”

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

By CynicalObserver

5/5/08 at 8:15 p.m.

Suggest removal

I'm sure that no one, except me, sees the importance of the map next to the article about Councilman Ross. I'm a "Tree Person", from well before it was fashionable to be an environmentalist.

I had the good fortune of growing up in a city planned by Olmstead, the earliest and foremost city planner of the 1800's. Olmstead is also responsible for much of the design of Washington DC. In all cases, Olmstead was wise enough to see that ample tree cover was essential to reducing the heat of the growing urban metropolis even then.

All of the City of Las Vegas, City of North Las Vegas and Clark County need to pay far more attention to the planting and watering of street trees, to the design of sidewalks and spaces between them and the curb which will allow the trees to grow, and to the planting of street trees which will maximize their contribution to "air scrubbing" which so so essential to preserving and improving the valley's air quality.

We all like to say that Las Vegas is better than the San Fernando Valley...but it's not. View the San Fernando Valley from any freeway and you'll see miles and miles of trees, which clean that valley's air.

The ridiculously small economic contribution of the public agencies to understanding the importance of street trees, as well as the planning decision makers' indifference about requiring the planting of street trees, condemn the Las Vegas Valley to worsening air quality.

Home builders like American West, who as a matter of policy refuse to plant street trees are a major part of the problem.

Home builders like Pardee, who sometimes plant street trees, are equally to be condemned because they do not care about their subcontractor Raybum Landscape's failure to plant street trees in a good and workmanlike manner which would be followed by a certified nurseryman.

But for our winds, Las Vegas would already be an air polluted sh*thole like Beijing, because of the masses of people gathered here, with no tree cover to soak up the air polution created by our human activities.