County officials condemn gaming tax, regional planning bills

      Clark County commissioners derided two legislative bills Tuesday as ploys to consolidate county and city governments.
      "If voters don't want (consolidation) through the front door, I don't think they want it through the back door either," said Commissioner Mary Kincaid, noting that voters twice have rejected plans to merge the county with the city of Las Vegas.
      Kincaid and her colleagues scoffed at a Senate Judiciary Committee proposal to create a single gaming tax district that would distribute gaming taxes to each municipality on a per capita basis.
      County government keeps all gaming taxes collected in unincorporated county areas, plus 25 percent of those collected in city limits. The Senate bill would allow each city to keep gaming tax revenues generated in its jurisdiction.
      The plan mirrors a similar proposal by Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones and Councilman Matthew Callister, who have fought to equalize city tax rates with those in unincorporated county areas.
      But Commissioner Lorraine Hunt said the county should keep more gaming tax revenues because it has broader -- therefore more expensive -- responsibilities than the city.
      County Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates agreed, adding the Senate bill "would reward municipalities who are not as fiscally prudent as they should be and ... punish Clark County."
      Atkinson Gates said she would be interested in pooling funds with the city only if all resources, not just gaming taxes, were included. That way, county officials argue, the county would glean $18 million more per year, and the city would lose $14 million.
      Commissioners also had harsh words Tuesday for a bill introduced in the Assembly's Government Affairs Committee requiring regional planning in Clark County.
      Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, sponsored the bill because, she said, "it's time to get all elected officials out of the role of commissioners and council people, and into the role of advocates and planners for all Southern Nevada residents."
      She took most of the bill from a measure passed by lawmakers several sessions ago establishing a regional planning board for Washoe County.
      Atkinson Gates said she thinks Washoe's program has "created more problems than it's solved." Besides, she added, forming a regional planning agency would "create more bureaucracy, which we don't want."
      "When we were discussing the whole idea of collaborative planning, it was not to create another layer of government," she said.
      Board members bristled at the Assembly bill as a tactic to usurp their powers.
      Commissioners Erin Kenny and Myrna Williams -- both former lawmakers -- said the introduction of the single gaming district and regional planning bills further their resolve to push for greater policy-making autonomy.
      "The county is hamstrung because the Legislature does not allow us to make very critical decisions," said Williams, likening legislative process to the child's game, Mother May I? "I think the time is right to make a real concerted push for home rule."