Las Vegas-Clark County fire services hearing delayed

Las Vegas put off its firefight with Clark County on Wednesday, delaying a second hearing on a burgeoning brouhaha over services provided by the city Fire Department in pockets of unincorporated county within city limits.

City leaders — who heard a first report on the issue earlier this month — said they're owed millions of dollars under a decades-old agreement that charges the county for fire services.

They plan to revisit the issue on Nov. 18, though City Manager Betsy Fretwell said she hopes to have the matter resolved by then.

The deal in dispute, drawn up in 1977 and amended in 1985, requires the county to pay 125 percent of fire district service taxes collected in county islands — cash Las Vegas says it never received.

The city in September sent a bill to the county seeking back payments totaling $3.7 million.

Two weeks later, city leaders took a pass on a staff proposal to simply write off the payments, leaving open the option of suing if the county doesn't pay.

A day after that, Mayor Carolyn Goodman sent a letter to County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak.

She noted the two municipalities' "rich history of working amicably" and called on Sisolak to help the two sides talk it out.

"My hope is that working this issue out now may also go a long way toward addressing other significant inter-jurisdictional issues in the northwest sector of the valley," Goodman wrote, referencing a long-running annexation feud over city efforts to annex more than 100 acres of property on county islands between Centennial Parkway and West Oakey Boulevard.

County Manager Don Burnette never formally responded to the city's Sept. 29 fire services invoice, but he did meet for a "frank and productive" conversation with Fretwell and other Las Vegas leaders last week.

He's hopeful city leaders will expand future talks to include North Las Vegas, the other signatory on a longstanding automatic aid agreement that also includes Las Vegas and the county.

"I think Betsy's at a point where she's willing to have that conversation," Burnette said. "I didn't hear anything to suggest she doesn't want to."

Fretwell agreed.

"To resolve responses into borders, islands, all that stuff, we have to look at the bigger picture," she said. "That will help us resolve the smaller picture."

North Las Vegas Assistant City Manager Ryann Juden said he wasn't sure if either municipality had reached out to his city regarding its potential inclusion in the talks.

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven