EDITORIAL: The high price of bureaucratic hubris

Las Vegas and Clark County taxpayers continue to pay for the folly of their elected officials. The price tag is a tribute to bureaucratic arrogance.

Last week, Las Vegas officials announced they will delay nearly $20 million in capital improvement projects to help cover the costs of a multimillion-dollar legal settlement involving the shuttered Badlands golf course northwest of Charleston and Rampart. The owner of the property successfully sued after city officials, doing the bidding of homeowners in the tony Queensridge neighborhood, blocked his plans to close the course in order to make way for additional housing.

At least one prescient member of the City Council warned repeatedly that scuttling the project, which had proper zoning, would put the municipality in legal and financial jeopardy. But the obstructionists flexed their muscles, and the city eventually took a beating in court for violating the Fifth Amendment’s taking clause. As a result of this municipal malfeasance, Las Vegas taxpayers were left holding the bag for $286 million.

The city now faces a $110 million deficit through fiscal 2026, leading officials to consider various options to stanch the bleeding. Among the casualties are a planned expansion of the city jail, various parks projects throughout town and signage and beautification efforts in certain areas.

Meanwhile, Clark County residents won’t be spared because the County Commission found itself in a similar bind.

Last year, the board voted to end a 20-year-old dispute with a developer who hoped to build luxury homes on Blue Diamond Hill near Red Rock Canyon. The proposal met with fierce resistance from environmental groups, and state lawmakers even stepped in to try to prevent the development. But the county’s legal footing was dubious from the start and — like the Badlands fiasco — unlikely to survive a court battle over property rights.

The commission finally settled for $80 million rather than risk losing a takings case like their Las Vegas brethren. To fill the budget hole, commissioners diverted $43 million from county parks projects — at least $5 million from each of the seven commission districts — and $37 million from the capital projects fund.

In the world of the public sector, the settlements are an example of fiscal prudence because the city and county would have risked millions more in liability by continuing the fight. But this ignores the fact that neither government would have been in this predicament in the first place had its elected and public officials exercised restraint and showed an elementary understanding of the Fifth Amendment.

Instead, both the city and county for years used local taxpayers as a bottomless ATM to fund futile legal confrontations under the theory that they had the unfettered power to trample the rights of property owners.

Only when the political risks became too great to bear did they opt for the proper course of action.

These unfortunate episodes remain a stain on both governments and a burden on Las Vegas and county taxpayers, who must now foot the bill for the hubris of the politicians and bureaucrats involved.

What an injustice.