Park’s namesake kept eye on the taxpayers’ money

Before W. Wayne Bunker was the name of the park at 7300 W. Alexander Road, its namesake was a city councilman from 1985-89 who was known for his red pencil.

The W. stands for William, but he always officially went by W. Wayne.

W. Wayne Bunker was a meticulous man when it came to money matters. He was a certified public accountant who served one term on the Las Vegas City Council.

Ron Lurie, mayor from 1987 to 1991, recalled Bunker as very serious.

"Whenever he came to a meeting, you knew he was well-prepared ... he'd ask a question, but you got the sense that he already knew the answer," Lurie said.

Bunker replaced outgoing councilman Paul Christensen, who was appointed to the county commission. Bunker was one of four finalists for the position, the others being attorney Edward Bernstein, dentist James McMillan and resident Lois Ann Larson. Bunker was 62 at the time and represented Ward 4.

"After I left office, they called me and wanted me to come out there," Bunker said of the park named for him. "When I got there, the sign was already up. It was a great honor."

Bunker said the park probably was named after him because he had complained that a park was needed in the fast-growing northwest part of the valley.

"I told them there wasn't a blade of grass north of Lorenzi (Park)," he said. "I guess they got the word and decided to put one in."

The youngest of five children, he was born and raised in St. Thomas, Nev., a farming community along the Colorado River. St. Thomas was covered by Lake Mead when the Hoover Dam was built.

The family moved to Las Vegas in 1933. The city's population was 4,500.

"Coming from St. Thomas, it was a big city to me," he told a Las Vegas Sun reporter in 1986.

His cousin was Berkeley Bunker, who would go on to establish Bunker Brothers Mortuary and Chapel, which evolved into Bunkers Memory Gardens west of Santa Fe Station and now operated by a corporation.

"Berkeley became a U.S. senator," said Mark Hall-Patton, administrator of Clark County Museums. "There was a Wayne Bunker and a W. Wayne Bunker ... it was quite a big family, and some of them had the same names."

As a boy, W. Wayne Bunker helped deliver milk from his family's creamery. When Berkeley Bunker bought a gas station in downtown Las Vegas, W. Wayne pumped gas there -- back when attendants checked the oil level and tire pressure as part of the service. He worked the night shift and said the experience showed him that he "needed to get an education."

He considered an occupation in law or medicine but didn't have the financial means to see that to fruition. He opted to be an accountant and attended Brigham Young University for one year.

Then America got into World War II, and he enlisted and finished his undergraduate degree as a recruit at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo. That was followed by officer candidate school.

He served his country as a second lieutenant with the 4th Marine Division during the invasion of Iwo Jima. He was later a captain in the Marine Corps Reserve and also served during the Korean Conflict.

He returned to Las Vegas and opened an accounting firm. Before being appointed to the city position, he was on the board of directors for First Interstate Bank. He also was a chairman on the city's Citizens Advisory Committee. He already was well-known in government, having worked on city audits. He was president of the Nevada Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Kiwanis Club of Uptown Las Vegas.

Fellow councilmen said he did not join them with any kind of political agenda.

"He's a hard worker," Lurie, then a fellow city councilman, said in a Las Vegas newspaper article in 1986. "We (the council) have never really had anyone on the board who takes the time to scrutinize contracts and agreements the way Wayne does. It's refreshing to have somebody like that."

Lurie also said that with the new appointee's attention to detail, "he sees things we might overlook."

Those overlooked things were circled by the red pencil that Bunker carried in his shirt pocket. He used it so much, the article said, it became a running joke with the other councilmen.

"He goes through budgets line item by line item, contracts, vowel by vowel," said fellow councilman Arnie Adamsen in a 1989 Las Vegas Review-Journal article. Staffers often looked nervous when he pulled out the red pencil in city council meetings, knowing they'd be called upon to explain details of the item in question, the article said.

"He was very watchful of the taxpayer's money," that same article quoted Ashley Hall, city manager from 1983 to 1990, as saying. "And he looked out for his constituents as well as anyone I've known."

Bunker maintained that the red pencil was just his way of "highlighting things I wanted to bring up."

At the time of Bunker's tenure, about 75 percent of all zoning matters involved Ward 4. The area was known for custom homes on large lots, some with horses. Bunker said his main concern was not to allow high-density growth. In the 1980s, topics that crossed the councilman's desk included traffic problems along U.S. Highway 95, the conflicting survey lines of Decatur Boulevard north of Lone Mountain Road and numerous rezoning requests.

Bunker left public office in 1989 and returned to life as a CPA. He now lives in Boulder City.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.