From: "Lenadams Dorris" <lenadams@hiddenvegas.com>
To: <ccdistf@co.clark.nv.us>
Cc: <zoning@co.clark.nv.us>, <ccdistg@co.clark.nv.us>,
<ccdista@co.clark.nv.us>, <ccdistb@co.clark.nv.us>,
<ccdistc@co.clark.nv.us>, <ccdistd@co.clark.nv.us>,
<ccdiste@co.clark.nv.us>
Subject: MP-736-02
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 13:19:56 -0700
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Importance: Normal

Dear Commissioner Kenny,

You may not remember me. My name is Lenadams Dorris, and over the last fifteen years I've been active in promoting local quality of life issues through my roles as television reporter, radio essayist and print journalist. Back in 1992 we were both Democratic candidates for state assembly, and got to know each other during one of Val Wiener's intense public image seminars.

I was pleased to see your political career take off, and am even more pleased that you now serve as county commissioner for my neighborhood.

I am writing to you to express my concern about an issue that will soon come before the commission. I hope you can forgive me for this long letter, but sometimes things are simply too complex to deal with them in a few short sentences. I am referring to the Laing Homes' plan to develop Blue Diamond Hill to provide housing for as many as 21,000 people (which will come before the commission as MP-736-02). While it is true that the proposed development is outside the boundaries of the Red Rock Conservancy Area, it is most definitely within the area that any person would recognize as Red Rock Canyon.

Like you, I am not anti-business, and despite my fights over the years to preserve wild space, I am not anti-growth either. I do believe, however, that to date we have provided insufficient protection to the extremely rare and unmistakably unique environments that surround the Las Vegas Valley, every one of which can suffer enormous unintentional degradation simply through the pursuit of "business as usual."

If I remember correctly, we are about the same age. In our short lifetimes, much has been lost.

1. The spiritual and historical center of our city was severed by a freeway, and the Big Springs/Las Vegas Creek complex--the literal wellspring that allowed humans to settle here in the first place--was almost completely destroyed. Fortunately, the Las Vegas Springs Reserve project is working to resurrect what's left, but in many ways what is being planned is a recreation, not a restoration...there's simply not enough of the original springs and streams to restore.
2. Under the "direction" of the Army Corps of Engineers, Flamingo and Tropicana Washes and Duck Creek, which could have formed the kind of amenities found in other cities (where watersheds and urban creeks have been transformed into combination recreation lands, green spaces and flood control facilities) have been utterly destroyed, channelized in such a way that the water that flows through them all can now provide nothing but destruction in the form of flash floods. Along the way at least two species of animals (and an unknown number of plants) that lived *only* in our valley were driven extinct. These seasonal rivers were original lush and unique ecosystems that wove through the valley carrying away excess water and using it to provide sustenance for animals, reeds and huge trees. Now every mile, from the mountains to the lake, is channelized, diverted and to a large extent covered with concrete.
3. The extensive sand dunes and mesquite forests that characterized lower Paradise Valley and the area around Sunset Park were systematically destroyed by relentless and unplanned development. Eventually, the only significant parcel left was in the undeveloped part of Sunset Park (which also sported a mesquite forest, unique creek side habitats and arguably the valley's oldest trees). Instead of preserving this last chunk of a totally unique, irreplaceable ecosystem, County Parks slowly carved it up into recreation areas until it was essentially gone.
4. Over in the city, land was deeded for use as a Nature Park. This large parcel was essentially undisturbed since the days of the pioneers. While it had populations of some exotic plants and animals in it, it was also the only place left in the valley where one could stand and get a sense of what it must've been like before white settlers arrived. The park, in addition to being unique among the metropolitan area's recreation areas, was the only protected preserve of "wild" Las Vegas, and was used by teachers from grade school to graduate school to show students things they otherwise would never know. Then, about six years ago, city parks cut a deal with a commercial golf course company. The entirety of Nature Park was scraped clean, and a for-profit golf course was opened on its site.

Things have not been much better on the urban front. The loss of Nature Park was actually part of a trend in which public parks were closed or sold off. The original city park downtown that surrounded City Hall was unceremoniously chopped into quarters by the freeway and the freeway's access routes, and the western portion was sold to the Boyd Group for use as an RV park. All that is left of what was once the city's gathering place is a bit of grass surrounding the Senior Center at Bonanza and Las Vegas Boulevard. Further down the hill was Fantasy Park, where generations of Las Vegas kids grew up playing. Then, in the early 1990s, the entire site (which was among the most historic sites in the city, containing the original fields of the Las Vegas Fort and a pre-settlement graveyard) was given over to the state for development of a new multi-story office building.

There are many more examples of our collective disdain for both our natural environment and the parks we build, which one would think were sacrosanct. I am aware of no other city (or metropolitan area with multiple governments, as we are) in which city park land is sold or given away and converted to non-park use.

Even worse, I do not believe there is any other American city of our size with no central park, no central plaza and no real shared space. You can run down a list of western cities with significant parklands in the center of town: San Diego has Balboa Park, Los Angeles has Griffith Park, San Francisco has Golden Gate Park, Portland has Forest Park, Seattle has Discovery Park, Phoenix has Papago Park and South Mountain Park. None of these cities was larger than a half-million when the political will was established to provide a large, central combination wild land/recreation area for its citizens. And yet our one late-date possibility for creating something on the same lines, the former railroad land just west of downtown, has been frittered away, as evidenced by the current construction of an outlet mall on that land, proudly announced by huge signs. That land was our inheritance, and everyone knew that the only acceptable future for it was as a central public park and recreational facility...with or without stadiums or zoos, but certainly not with outlet malls.

It may seem that all of this has little to do with allowing a developer to place a massive development at the gates of Red Rock. My point is that we have repeatedly squandered our public inheritance, so repeatedly that we find ourselves in 2002 unable to imagine what kind of money it would take to fix or make up for the damage to the public environment we have allowed to occur.

In light of that, it seems that without directly opposing the Laing development, one could take the stance that our public lands and their surrounding environments are too precious to waste or damage, and that the most judicious thing to do would be to wait. Simply to wait.

I know that you feel, as I do, that Red Rock is a jewel. And even though it is administered elsewhere, it really is *our* jewel, one of the only places a city dweller can get to in a short time that will give her rest from the noise and commerce of the valley. I am not one of those NIMBY guys, and I believe that people should generally be allowed to develop their property as they please. In this case, though, the public good is at stake. We have hundreds, if not thousands of subdivisions for people to chose from, while we still lack adequate parks and public wild land. And right now, everyone, rich or poor, has to make the journey to get to Red Rock, to go through the process of getting there that is as much a part of the experience as actually being there. A development like that proposed brings the city to Red Rock, forever and unalterably. And like I said, even though it is not *technically* within the borders of the current protected area, it *is* in Red Rock.

What we now know of as Red Rock came to be protected in stages. Land that is now part of the Conservancy was at one time unprotected from development. It was saved from that fate because the city had not yet grown enough to make it worth anyone's while. In the meantime, the land was acquired and is now in the public trust in perpetuity. Except for that of the handful of envied residents in Blue Diamond and Calico Basin, there will be no more housing in Red Rock. Is it too much to ask that we wait to approve building at what is now Red Rock's front door? Perhaps soon that land, too, will be set aside for the pleasure and restoration of the soon to be 2 million people in the valley below. Perhaps we have the chance now to give something to the future, like the entrusted officials of those other cities did.

Haven't we made enough mistakes already?

With respect,

Mr. Lenadams Dorris
3813 El Cederal
Las Vegas, NV 89102
702-248-0984
lenadams@hiddenvegas.com

cc: all members of the County Commission