Las Vegas bill prolongs annexation spat with Clark County

Las Vegas’ newly planned “service area” isn’t quite what it seems.

The area, which would be created under an ordinance set for introduction Wednesday, has been billed as the city’s “smart growth” solution to provide sewer infrastructure for future development within city limits.

But it’s really an attempt to blunt the impact of Senate Bill 481, a Clark County-backed piece of legislation set to take effect July 1 that would virtually nullify the city’s claim to some 250 parcels situated on an “island” of unincorporated county territory in northwest Las Vegas.

In some ways, the countermeasure is also an extension of a long-running annexation feud between City Councilman Steve Ross and Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins, who have spent years jawing over city efforts to gobble up over 100 acres of property on county islands between Centennial Parkway and West Oakey Boulevard.

City officials signed off on the annexation of around two dozen such parcels late last year and tentatively approved eight additional proposals at a committee meeting Monday. They have not yet scheduled hearings for more than 200 similar annexations.

Those moves were enabled by a long-standing Las Vegas ordinance that requires county landowners to submit an annexation request before tying into the city’s sewer system — a necessity since the county system doesn’t go north of Sahara Avenue.

A 14-year annexation agreement between the municipalities had allowed county landowners to join the city without paying Las Vegas’ higher tax rates.

That interlocal agreement expired in January, leaving the city with a backlog of hundreds of parcels subject to an annexation request dating back to 2000. City officials estimate county residents who join from here on would have to pay an extra $400 per year on a $200,000 home.

Enter SB 481 — a bill that effectively bars cities from forcing unincorporated residents and businesses within their “service areas” to be annexed as a condition of using city-owned utilities.

This week’s city ordinance, which makes direct reference to that bill, would expand Las Vegas’ “service area” to include all property within existing city limits. But it would also deny sewer service to any future applicants who haven’t already filed under the city’s old annexation rules.

By bowing to the state’s newly inked definition of a service area — without applying that definition retroactively — the ordinance appears to try to stay on the right side of state law, while still allowing the city to take over annexed properties in its pipeline.

But not if Commissioner Collins has anything to say about it.

Collins, a former state legislator who wants to run for North Las Vegas’ mayor’s seat in 2017, has long opposed Las Vegas’ northwest valley annexation plans, moves he characterized in December as nothing less than a violation of “personal property rights.”

The three-term commissioner lauded SB 481 as an “anti-bullying bill” not long after it was passed earlier this month.

Reached for comment Friday, Collins found few fond words for the city’s proposed countermeasure. He may not have even looked for any.

“Looks to me like they’re (urinating) in the wind, instead of trying to become more cooperative,” he said. “(The city) is talking about forcing people to annex, about having people pay much higher taxes and fees.

“Clark County is over 8,000 square miles. Las Vegas is just one of several small islands within that.”

Las Vegas, for its part, has blamed the earlier annexation agreement for creating a lot of freeloaders — taxpayers who receive the benefits of city sewer services without having to pay all of the costs of being in the city.

Councilman Ross, who plans to run for Collins’ seat next year, has ferociously defended the city’s approach to past and future annexation requests, pointing out that many are more than a decade old and all were undertaken at the landowners’ behest.

He’s chalked up rancorous neighborhood opposition to the annexations as the product of a misinformation campaign sponsored, or at least not opposed, by Collins and the county.

Ross once said that if he were king for a day, he would make county islands within city limits disappear. Collins told a reporter he would punch the Ward 6 councilman in the nose for pulling such a move.

With both elected leaders now termed out of office, the brewing annexation battle won’t have to come to blows to be a fight worth watching.

“Tom Collins can say whatever he wants,” Ross said. “We’re going to do what the city has to do to protect its residents.”

Las Vegas City Council members will read the proposed annexation ordinance into the record Wednesday and forward it for consideration by members of the city’s recommending committee the following Monday.

If moved out of that committee, city leaders could take final action on the move early next month.

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