Park funding shifted

Robbed. Extorted. Forced to send money down a "black hole of bureaucracy" in Clark County.

After giving those and other characterizations to a new way of distributing money used to build parks, the Las Vegas City Council agreed to the new arrangement on Wednesday. The new formula will send millions in future tax revenue to Clark County, money that under current rules would have been retained by the city.

Like Henderson and North Las Vegas before it, Las Vegas surrendered the chunk of future room tax because the alternative would have been Clark County taking away an even larger amount.

The change could make Clark County the primary provider of park space in the Las Vegas Valley.

But Las Vegas council members didn't give up that role, or the money, quietly.

It made for good intergovernmental sparring. And it raised a bigger question: Who among local governments has been, and will be, the best at building parks?

The city of Las Vegas was the loudest in proclaiming itself the king of Southern Nevada park building. It has built eight regional parks and spent $304 million on parks and recreation projects over the past 10 years. That's an additional 355 acres.

"Nobody builds a better regional park than the city of Las Vegas," Mayor Oscar Goodman said.

Councilman Larry Brown has championed a number of large parks in his ward, each featuring a dozen or so playing fields. He called for the county to identify specifically where the additional money will be spent.

"As long as it doesn't go into the black hole of bureaucracy across the tracks, I'll support it," Brown said.

Rest assured, the county plans to use the money for parks, County Manager Virginia Valentine and Commission Chairman Rory Reid said.

Over the past 10 years, the county has added 597 acres to its park system, officials said. And with the added money from the new arrangement -- about $5 million over the next five years -- the county says it is in the best position to build regional parks that serve residents of the cities and the county.

"Parks have always been a top priority in the county," Valentine said.

"This is about what's fair," Reid said. "Ninety percent of room tax is generated on the Las Vegas Strip, but we get 40 percent of the revenue."

Reid points out that the county negotiated with the cities for the past 18 months.

"I understand their emotion. But we could've done something much more Draconian," Reid said. "We're protecting their existing revenue. If they were in our position, they might see things differently."

Brown called the county's taking of the money "hypocritical." County officials were among those protesting when the Legislature took money from local governments to pay for roads.

Goodman said the county, during the legislative session, was "crying and screaming like stuck pigs."

As for the county's promise to direct the money to parks, Goodman said: "I don't believe them. Have them put it in writing."

North Las Vegas City Manager Gregory Rose said the new agreement might affect two regional parks that the city is planning -- one of 135 acres, another of 160. It "may not enable us to have amenities we feel we should have in the regional parks," he said.

He said North Las Vegas has spent, or plans to spend in the near future, $94 million and has acquired the two regional park sites.

There are no county regional parks readily accessible to the citizens of North Las Vegas, Rose said.

Henderson officials were less combative. The Henderson City Council agreed earlier this month to send the additional room tax revenue to the county and did so without discussion.

"We're able to keep the base," city spokeswoman Cindy Herman said. "It was much better than the first iteration of this plan."

Henderson has added 737 acres of parks over the past 10 years at a cost of $93 million, though some of the costs have been picked up by developers.

The new agreement freezes the current distribution of room tax as it was on June 30, 2007. In the future, though, all additional room tax revenue will go to the entity where the hotel room is located.

Over the next five years, the county estimates that Las Vegas will get about $2.8 million less than under the old agreement; Henderson will lose out on $1 million; and North Las Vegas on $900,000 (though North Las Vegas' estimate is $2.8 million). Boulder City and Mesquite will make up the rest of the $5 million in additional money the county expects to receive.

Valentine said the county could issue a bond against that expected revenue to build regional projects. That won't happen, though, until the projects are designed, she said.

"We want to focus resources on large regional parks that draw from a larger area than a neighborhood park or community park," Valentine said.

The county already has built and expanded Desert Breeze and Sunset regional parks. They have built the first part of the Lone Mountain Regional Park in the northwest part of the Las Vegas Valley. And there are two more large regional parks planned, one in the far southwest part of the valley and the other in the far east.