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On Wednesday, April 21, the Clark County Commission Hearing's 4-3 vote in favor of settling with Jim Rhodes came as a monumental disappointment to everyone in the room who had just spent hours testifying against it.
Though the people lost to four commissioners, they did get three votes, and this is just one battle from which the public message rang out loud and clear, that Red Rock is always worth defending.
The commissioners received hundreds of phone calls and letters and were presented with thousands of petition signatures from the Save Red Rock Coalition and supporters. And the meeting ( video of hearing: scroll to start time of 1:39:39) revealed an educated public, researched, varied, dedicated, and passionate about not settling and compromising the Red Rock Overlay. The meeting started with the District Attorney (1:39:39) and Jim Rhodes' lawyer (1:58) telling the commissioners why they should accept the proposed settlement with Jim Rhodes (Gypsum Resources), and why they should listen to the lawyers and not the people.
After those two testimonies were heard for the settlement, all other testimony was against it, beginning with Kevin Powers (2:27) from the Nevada State Legislative Counsel Bureau in Carson City and Congresswoman Dina Titus (2:18) from the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. They cautioned the commissioners as to why they should deny or at least postpone the settlement until after the state hearing, and were followed by two hours of public testimony (2:36), also against it. It was clearly not just a District F issue as citizens from Boulder City, Las Vegas, Blue Diamond, Mt. Charleston, and Henderson all testified against compromising the Red Rock Overlay with a settlement.
Yet, the meeting still ended with a 4-3 vote for settling with Jim Rhodes.
The Save Red Rock Coalition hopes this is not an indication of how the county will vote when presented with Mr. Rhodes' major project application in the future.
The settlement exempts Rhodes' mountain top property from the Red Rock rural zoning restrictions and allows him to apply for a major development project, in exchange, the county won't have to fight him in court and risk losing a million dollars in legal fees. (The other risks reported to the media and commissioners such as, "over 46,000 acres will be left unprotected", "protecting 159 from increased traffic", etc., are invalid. See video.) One vocal opponent of the settlement said that "Red Rock was worth way more than a million bucks."
Commissioners Reid and Giunchigliani agreed that Red Rock was worth fighting for and voted against the settlement along with Commissioner Weekly. The people were grateful for their support and commitment.
Commissioners Brager, Sisolak, Brown, and Collins voted for the settlement, to the audible disdain of the public.
But Brager and Brown said that they would put together a citizen's group committee to protect the area and watch over the major projects. The Save Red Rock Coalition hasn't heard anything from them yet, but supporters are watching to see if they will and who will be included.
Every commissioner said they cared about Red Rock, and not everyone trusts that.
The people will be watching carefully to find in the ensuing weeks and months which of the commissioners is, as purported, honest and committed to the people and to saving Red Rock Canyon from development as deemed inappropriate by the community.
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Please help. (Flyers are attached to this article for download and distribution among your neighborhoods and public places.) This is tragic and urgent. Billie Jean James, the woman holding the Save Red Rock bumper sticker in this photo (by K.M. Cannon, Review Journal) has been missing since the day after the Clark County hearing last Wednesday. She has always been very kind and supportive of the Save Red Rock effort. She showed her support at the Red Rock Hearing, then turned up missing the next day. You can print out flyers and call Metro with any information: