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Thursday, January 18, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Centennial Hills wins name game

Part of northwest gets new moniker from City Council, which hopes tag will stick

Fifty years from now, the moniker "Centennial Hills" will either be part of Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack's legacy or a historic footnote about an idea that flopped.

Even Mack said he isn't sure if the name will catch on.

Clark County Commissioner Chip Maxfield, who represents the area, said if the city "feels they want to name that area, that's their business."

The new name "doesn't bother me," he said, adding he would use the new name when appropriate. Earlier, a county spokesman said Maxfield would continue to call the area the northwest.

It would be premature to say if the county's Lone Mountain Advisory Town Board should change its name to conform, the commissioner said, but he'll get public reaction to the idea at town hall meetings.

Out of the 520 suggested names, it came down to Centennial Hills or Arrow Canyon, and the hills (which surround the valley) easily beat out the canyon (which doesn't exist).

So at Wednesday's City Council meeting, after the jokes and teasing ended, the resolution renaming part of the northwest Centennial Hills passed unanimously.

The area was expanded at the last minute.

Councilman Larry Brown suggested lowering the southern boundary from Lone Mountain Road to Cheyenne Avenue, so the folks in that area don't feel like the "lost tribe" and so it matches the boundaries of the city's northwest plan.

Centennial Hills now is the area north of Cheyenne, south of Moccasin Road, west of Decatur Boulevard and east of Puli Road.

Mack is hoping the name will catch on. If a park is called Centennial Hills, that would help. Renaming the 2,000-acre "Town Center" and calling it "Centennial Hills Center" may help spread the word, he said.

Mack knows that people who live in the Tule Springs area will continue calling their area by the historic name, but he said the idea launched in October "truly was a grass-roots effort."

The final tally: Centennial Hills, 2,222 votes; Arrow Canyon, 1,784 votes; Tule Springs, 111 votes and Mayor Oscar Goodman's suggestion, Cielo de Oro -- Sky of Gold -- snagged 35.

The good news is that nobody's address will be changing as a result of Mack's idea, designed to give the area more of an identity and an increase in prestige.

The area in his Ward 6 and part of Brown's Ward 4 now has a population of about 100,000. When it's built out, it should have 320,000 people, Mack said. About 4,000 people voted on the names.

The 520 names proposed were whittled to 11, then two during a meeting of northwest residents where there was extensive public input. Then the finalists were put up to a vote by e-mail, the Internet and faxes.

Mack said the renaming process created extensive paperwork and it will be memorialized for years to come. It will be put in a time capsule in the Centennial Hills area.

Goodman suggested the time capsule be shaped like a cruise ship, since the mayor filled in to help with the pruning process when Mack was vacationing with his family on a Disney cruise ship.