Nor'Town: Politics in North Las Vegas, Nevada

Stuff Goin' On This Week

• North Las Vegas Alliance of Homeowners and Concerned Folk meets Thursday, Sept. 18th, at 6pm, Aliante Library, 2400 Deer Springs Way, North Las Vegas.
• Saturday, 9:30 am, at the Craig Ranch Regional Park during Baloonapolooka or whatever it's called, the mayor will announce the official name of the park, which is, Craig Ranch Regional Park. Deep in our heart of hearts, however, everybody in Nor'Town will always think of it as the Shawn Lampman park.
• Weds, Sept. 17, 6pm, city council meets to consider:
  •  a new hotel next to the Miller Gunnery Range View Hotel and Casino out on the I-15 on Centennial and Linn (items 3+38 on the agenda). It will be another fine addition to Casino Alley
  • a charming little "sexually oriented" club is requesting liquor licensing so that it can operate under the name "Chicas Bonitas" rather than the old name of "Cheerleaders" (items 10 and 11). Sorry folks, that's on the consent agenda, so you won't get to hear coucilmembers' jokes on the item.
• Barack Obama at Cashman Stadium, Weds. Sept. 17. Info here.

The Little League Lobby

The Sunsert reports today that the Little League Lobby was none too happy with the decision by the City Council to go with a plan for Craig Ranch park that will probably include only two baseball diamonds.

Somehow, it is a bit difficult to feel too much sympathy for the Little Leaguers. It turns out, according to the Sun story, that current demand is for 10 fields while there are 16 in the works at other locations. So, current plans out pace current needs by 60%. I wonder if the same can be said about roads and schools in Nor'Town?

All this is not to say that Little League doesn't deserve community support. The problem is that there are finite resources in the City and that there are other citizens besides the Little Leaguers and their parents and their coaches who have a legitimate right to share those resources.

And in a democracy, we get the government we deserve when we are so pathetically apathetic as we Nor'Towners, heck, we Nevadans, are. If twenty representatives of the Little League Lobby had bothered to show up at the City Council meeting last week, the whole park would probably be one big baseball diamond right now.

The Sun article says that there are about 600 little leaguers. Make the dubious assumptions that all those kids are only children and that they have two parents each. That makes 1200 voters. 1200 voters in a North Las Vegas Councilperson election would be a landslide.

And if the Little League Lobby really wants the city to pay their power bill--and why it should is beyond me--would they support the taxes to pay for that? Perhaps a tax on baseball bats?

The Lollipop Guild, by the way, could not be reached for comment on this story.

Council Does the Right Thing for Craig Ranch Park

Yes, I will grudgingly admit that the City Council did the right thing by voting for plan one for the Craig Ranch Regional Park. (RJ, CR)

Not that there wasn't a bit of a scuffle over the issue. Several citizens defended plan one, and Shari Buck attempted to defend one of the more sports-intensive plans by claiming she could produce hordes of balling little leaguers in support. In a quote from the RJ story, Buck said:

We could have loaded this building tonight with kids coming up and crying and begging for fields.

I suppose we'll have to take her word for it. One can only wonder why there wasn't even one at the meeting. While testifying on behalf of plan one, Lewis, once a candidate for Buck's seat, indicated that the little-league lobby had chatted her up on the ball fields. Who knew that the was such a thing as the little-league lobby North Las Vegas? Here's a tip for the LLL: set up a PAC and ask the Mayor how to fill it with developer and casino money. Then you'll get all the ball parks you could possibly want.

Buck also entertained the crowd with a Reagan-like attack on trees. They use water, it seems, and the city will probably end up pulling them up anyway. And there's the crime. Everybody knows nasty things lurk in dark forests, don't they? It's in every storybook, after all.

Nor'Towners will be left wondering why plan four was even considered in the first place. Plan four would have required a 70% reduction in trees at the site. A glance at the minutes of the Nov. 1st, 2006 meeting where plan four reared its ugly head will engender even greater confusion. There you will find both councilpeople Shari Buck and William "Man of Reason" Robinson favoring plan three. At the April 18 meeting, Buck announced she favored one or two, finally voting for one, and Robinson asked early on in the park discussion why the council hadn't approved the most popular plan, that'd be number one, in the first place. And in the Nov. 1 minutes the mayor claimed he was getting lots of phone calls for more "fields to play soccer and baseball." However, it was probably his announcement during Wednesday's meeting that he favored plan one, with the addition of two baseball fields in the northwest corner, that signaled a victory for that plan.

So, if all those people were making calls to the Mayor's office in November, where were they Wednesday evening? Was there a little-league playoff that day?

Perhaps the vote was the result of wily tactics from Stephanie Smith. She seemed the strongest supporter of plan one in November, and she capitalized on the citizen testimony at Wednesday's meeting to plea for the more natural setting. It was she who proposed that the council in November look into plan four. Was she simply buying time to soften up her colleagues and place the decision right in the middle of a campaign cycle?

Lookee here: at one time the park was also going to be a bird sanctuary. (Merc) Wonder what ever happened to that?

Craig Ranch Regional Park on Agenda Today

Item 25 on the City Council Meeting Agenda today asks for discussion or a decision about the Craig Ranch Regional Park. If you want to watch the Council talk itself into plan 4, which has an emphasis on sports, while ignoring plan 1, which was preferred by citizens, then stop by the Council Chambers, 2200 Civic Center Drive, Nor'Town, NV at 6pm, tonight, April 18, 2007.