Craig Road Pet Cemetery is a virtual walk of fame for the beloved pets of celebrated Las Vegans. The pets of Liberace, Snoop Dogg, Robert Goulet, Redd Foxx and even an elephant from Circus Circus — not cremated but buried whole — rest in peace here. The remains of 6,766 animals have been brought to the cemetery over the past 40 years.
Drivers who thought they’d see their unpaid traffic tickets forgiven after five years may not be so lucky this year. Las Vegas Justice Court has rescinded an order to dismiss old traffic tickets.
This is how Zappos is going to change the world. Eight people are sitting around a table next to a split-level swimming pool and spa, eating chicken wings and hamburgers grilled by caterers and sipping beers and mixed drinks served by a hired bartender.
Until they see if the Board of Regents next month forces the incoming dean of the medical school at UNR to live a good deal of time in Southern Nevada, Clark County commissioners refused to ratify a lease the school has at UMC.
The specter of higher property taxes in cash-strapped Clark County was raised today at a special budget meeting of the County Commission and is likely to return for discussion in a few weeks.
After last week’s revelation that one Clark County firefighter has been or will be fired and more than a dozen others will be disciplined for their misuse of sick leave, firefighters and county officials are waiting for the other shoe.
When Bruce Willis and a Hollywood crew shooting “Lay the Favorite,” a movie to be released next year, left Las Vegas a few days ago, it wasn’t because this isn’t a great place to shoot a film. “They loved the talent we had, loved the people they worked with,” said Tony Gennarelli, business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 720, which boasts 1,600 members. “But Louisiana has the tax incentives; we don’t.” Louisiana offers a 30 percent incentive for movies whose budget includes spending at least $300,000 in production in the state.
Some have declared dead the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, citing President Barack Obama zeroing out funding for it in the federal budget.
Amairani, the cashier/espresso queen at the place I walk to most mornings for a wake-up jolt, was talking about the huge concert planned outside Las Vegas next month. “I guess they’re moving here because so many people died at the concert in L.A.,” she said.
Slashing almost $40 million, laying off 82 people and cutting 115 vacant positions in next year’s budget will still leave Clark County about $50 million short.
Medical residents presented a unified feel-good message to Clark County commissioners, talking about the good they do for Southern Nevada while working at University Medical Center.
Putting off another more immediate water rate increase, a county board unanimously agreed to refinance payment of some $300 million in bonds that are funding the third intake pipeline from Lake Mead, which is still under construction.
During a meeting to examine how to balance next fiscal year’s budget, Clark County elected officials hammered on District Attorney David Roger, questioning whether the county’s top prosecutor tries too many costly death penalty cases.
Let’s call it the mayor’s victory tour, one last lap around his beloved downtown after a hard-fought win. In one of his last acts as mayor, with a little more than a month before his wife or Chris Giunchigliani is elected to replace him, Oscar Goodman cut ribbons at three new downtown businesses. As he went from Resnick’s, a small grocery in Soho Lofts, to Artifice and Bar+Bistro, two lounges a few blocks west in the Arts District, people stepped over themselves to congratulate him on downtown’s renaissance. “Phenomenal,” the mayor would reply.
The Clark County Shooting Park has become a thorn in the side of the County Commission because of constant questions about subsidies to keep it operating.
In October 2008, after hours of testimony, the Clark County Commission adopted an ordinance that sought to gain control over the county’s out-of-control feral cat population. By law, cats could be trapped, neutered and vaccinated and returned to where they were found.
In a memo to county commissioners and staff dated last week, District Attorney David Roger informed county officials that his department has fewer attorneys than the Public Defenders Office, his staff is overworked and he made big cuts in previous years.
For 40 years, downtown Las Vegas has been “Old Vegas,” and justifiably so. Binion's, the El Cortez, even the newly gilded Golden Nugget are museum pieces next to most Strip hotels. As a result, downtown has suffered economically.
Once shunned by developers looking to make fast bucks on the outskirts, downtown’s prospects have brightened
Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010
Of course, we’d all prefer that there had not been a recession. But some developers think the tumult of the past three years and ensuing depreciation of property values valleywide has been a good thing for the redevelopment of downtown Las Vegas.
Maybe Zappos really is a world changer -- or at the very least, a downtown Las Vegas changer. At a news conference today, Andrew Donner, CEO and owner of Resort Gaming Group, said Zappos' announcement last week that it will move into City Hall in 2012 only makes better RGG's plans to renovate, upgrade and overhaul the mothballed Lady Luck casino-hotel.
As with any big civic breakthrough where politicians are involved, there was no shortage of people lining up to take credit for Zappos’ decision to move its headquarters to downtown Las Vegas.
Group that hopes to build on Harrah’s site tries a new strategy
Friday, Aug. 20, 2010
After having failed to win the support of the Clark County Commission, a group seeking to build a $488 million NBA-style arena near the Strip is taking its case to the state Legislature and perhaps the voters.
Finding volunteers to serve on a board overseeing much of the day-to-day operations of University Medical Center has not been easy. Some Clark County commissioners, who have voted to give up most of their oversight of the taxpayer-funded hospital, say they understand why the public is reluctant to volunteer.
Jim Rogers told Clark County Commissioners today that executing a financial turnaround at UMC and building it into a world-class medical institution could take a decade.
Plans for a massive development near Red Rock Canyon — which vanished from public view after becoming mired in a lawsuit — are back. But the five years that have passed since they were first introduced haven’t erased nearby residents’ disdain for Jim Rhodes’ plans to build homes on a couple of thousand acres of Blue Diamond Hill, the site of a gypsum mine near the Red Rock National Conservation Area.
Company in competition with relative unknown backed by city of Las Vegas
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010
The competition is on for control of the .vegas Internet domain, after Clark County commissioners voted Tuesday to write a letter of support for VEGAS.com’s bid to control the proposed Web suffix.
Long-simmering issue of strip clubs paying bonuses for customers goes before County Commission once again
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010
As a professional poker player, Steve Graham is no stranger to the idiosyncrasies of Las Vegas. But he couldn’t believe it when, during a December visit, he was told cabdrivers would pay passengers for the privilege of dropping them off at the cabbie’s topless club of choice. Then he and four friends discovered for themselves that such deals could be had.
The Las Vegas City Council endorsed Wednesday an Internet entrepreneur’s plan to create a .vegas Internet domain over the objections of Clark County officials and a local company. But it doesn’t appear the decision by a divided council will resolve who get the rights to the Vegas name.
Potential revenue stream is at stake as top-level Web domain name has city, county arguing
Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010
The Las Vegas City Council will debate today whether to strike a deal with an Internet entrepreneur who seeks to use the Internet suffix .vegas — over the objections of Clark County officials and one local company who say the city is jumping the gun and in the process likely shortchanging Las Vegas and county taxpayers.
Potential revenue stream is at stake as top-level Web domain name has city, county arguing
Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010
The Las Vegas City Council will debate today whether to strike a deal with an Internet entrepreneur who seeks to use the Internet suffix .vegas — over the objections of Clark County officials and one local company who say the city is jumping the gun and in the process likely shortchanging Las Vegas and county taxpayers.
Commissioners ask why locals were denied blight-fighting money
Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010
The Housing and Urban Development Department awarded $2 billion in federal stimulus money last week to help communities deal with foreclosures. Southern Nevada came up empty-handed.
When County Commission Chairman Rory Reid announced that Jim Rogers volunteered to head up an effort find top-tier medical organizations to partner with University Medical Center to turn it into a true teaching hospital, the absence of Commissioner Lawrence Weekly, chairman of the county hospital’s board of trustees, was conspicuous.
Reid taps business, education expertise of former chancellor
Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010
In tapping Jim Rogers to attract a prestigious health care partner for UMC, Clark County gets a messenger with big ideas, a big profile and a big personality. Those who have worked closely with him said it might be the right combination for the job.
The votes are in and the verdict is: Get rid of University Medical Center, consolidate where possible and make cuts in the Fire Department, including possibly eliminating the department’s paramedic duties.
Rory Reid called county commissioners’ approval of his slate of fiscal moves Tuesday a “watershed moment.” For one thing, the 5-2 vote sets Clark County on course to hand off its hospital. As radical as the possibility of privatizing University Medical Center might have once sounded, though, winning enough “yes” votes toward dumping the troubled and costly hospital was the easy part of the package.
Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid opened the year in politics Monday with a five-point plan to solve Clark County’s fiscal troubles and put government and public services on a path to long-term stability.
If Clark County ever sells University Medical Center, or even part of it, to jettison the troubled hospital, it’s going to take intensive meetings with unions, business leaders and public officials.
It’s preliminary, but commissioners are looking at options for ailing hospital
Friday, Nov. 27, 2009
With University Medical Center once again running tens of millions of dollars in the red, Clark County commissioners are considering ways to wash their hands of the public hospital. It’s not the first time the county has broached the idea of divorcing itself from the hospital.
The world has not seen the last of the Las Vegas stripper-mobile, the truck’s owner says. Fred Robertson, owner of Always Rolling Ads, only quit hauling exotic dancers up and down the Strip last week because the nude clubs that had leased the advertising vehicle decided they didn’t want to take on county commissioners. The commissioners had cited not just complaints from offended onlookers but concerns about safety — the dancers were “unsecured” in the back of the truck, and rubbernecking motorists might drive their cars into pedestrians or other vehicles.
The stripper-mobile won’t be the talk of the town — or the nation — much longer. Las Vegas attorney Jay Brown, who represents Little Darlings and Déjà Vu strip clubs, said the controversial Strip run of the U-Haul-like truck outfitted with Plexiglas walls to showcase clothed strippers is over.
Even the men who hand out “nude girls direct to your room” cards stopped their hawking long enough to do some gawking at the “stripper-mobile” as it rolled down the Strip on Monday night. It’s akin to a small U-Haul truck but with Plexiglas surrounding the brightly lit cargo area instead of walls. In the middle is a gleaming stripper pole. Swinging around the pole is a scantily clad young woman. Two of her fellow strippers are in the back of the truck too, awaiting their turns.
As other parts of the country win tens of millions of dollars in court judgments against online tourism companies, Clark County commissioners are talking about following suit. At issue is the amount of hotel room taxes paid by online travel sites.
A federal judge this morning ordered the Clark County Commission not to vote Tuesday on bids for a $100 million-plus highway project. Federal Court Judge Robert Jones scheduled a Nov. 2 hearing on whether to grant a preliminary injunction.
MGM Mirage lost a $5 million convention recently. No one blamed President Barack Obama’s remarks about frivolous travel for scaring off the desperately needed business. Rather, it appears county ordinances were to blame.
In the recession, valley construction bucks are going further — while creating jobs and enhancing infrastructure.
Friday, Oct. 9, 2009
The collapsing construction industry is allowing local government to get public works projects done at fire-sale prices. Regional Flood Control Director Gale Fraser told local government officials Thursday that his engineers expect tax dollars spent on infrastructure to stretch 25 percent to 50 percent further than before the recession because of increased competition among construction firms. “We are getting 18 to 19 bidders for each project, where we used to get three or four,” he said. “With the engineers estimates we’re using today ... we can probably build $300 million worth of projects ... with $200 million.”
Homeowner furious at county for seizing his tools, materials to rectify code violations
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009
When Clark County hauled away tools, building materials, a boat and inoperable vehicles from Kirk Ingram’s cluttered front and back yards last week, his was an unusually large case, but an example of yet another ripple effect of the housing market crash. Property owners are “more concerned” these days about any additional devaluation inflicted upon them by their neighbors, according to Joe Boteilho, chief of the county’s Public Response Office.
Hospital’s latest report covers those without SS numbers
Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009
Patients who either have no Social Security numbers or refused to provide them to University Medical Center failed to pay $114.3 million in bills from the public hospital last year. Of that, said Kathy Silver, UMC’s CEO, the cost to taxpayers is about $33 million.