Tuesday, April 27, 1999 | 10:28 a.m.
Speak with Mark Fine for more than a few minutes and you're likely to hear the word community at least five times.
First there's talk of the two master-planned communities, Green Valley and Summerlin, that Fine helped develop over the past 25 years. Then there's his vision for the entire Las Vegas community.
Although he considers himself something of an unofficial mayor of the 8,000-acre Green Valley and the 23,000-acre Summerlin, he's now trying to become the official mayor of Las Vegas.
As a result, he's been taking a cue from Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura's populist rise to power last November and attempting to label himself as a political outsider.
"I'm a businessman, not a politician," Fine said. "I intend to run this city like a CEO would a business."
Beneath the business veneer is the father of five who is concerned about the arts, education and air quality. A longtime Democrat who is now registered as nonpartisan, Fine packs his speeches with references to "equal opportunities" and "reducing air pollution."
But the playful father shooting hoops in his initial television ad was also the first to turn his commercials negative -- attacking front-runner Oscar Goodman for his lack of civic involvement over the past 30 years and assailing veteran City Councilman Arnie Adamsen for everything from traffic problems to his trips to Asia.
"I don't consider it a negative campaign," Fine said after speaking to seniors at a recent breakfast that he sponsored at the Summit in Sun City Summerlin. "As a candidate I have to differentiate myself."
Trailing by as many as 28 points in polls, Fine has been setting himself apart from his two main opponents in the field of nine with comments that cast doubt on their motives.
"Oscar is a friend, and I respect his accomplishments as an attorney," Fine said. "But he'll say whatever he needs to say to get himself elected."
Fine said the Adamsen-supported Sister Cities program "has been taxpayer subsidized for no particular purpose I can see."
Although Fine describes his campaign strategy as "lay low and try not to catch any stray bullets," he's hardly taking his own advice.
"The traffic problems and the lack of strategic planning are not new issues," Fine said. "(Adamsen is) the only guy who's been on the council 12 years, so who do we have to thank?"
Born in Cleveland where his father owned apartment buildings, Fine moved with his family to Arizona when his father's business took them there.
Fine graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in business administration and went to New York City to work in the real estate departments of Chemical Bank and Loeb Rhoades & Co.
He moved to Las Vegas in 1973 when the opportunity arose to plan thousands of acres of land in Henderson.
From 1974 to 1990, Fine served as president of American Nevada Corp. (owned by the Greenspun family who also own the Sun) and oversaw the development of Green Valley. That community's instant popularity led to Henderson's status as one of the fastest-growing cities nationwide.
In 1990, he left American Nevada to become president of development for Summerlin, a division of the Howard Hughes Corp., which was responsible for developing the huge amount of land that Hughes set aside and labeled with his mother's maiden name.
Fine draws from his experience developing those residential areas near parks, schools and churches for ideas to manage the city's ever-present growth. "For me it was a sense of building a community that was people-friendly. It was affordable and it offered amenities to a variety of people.
"The idea was to create an environment where someone could come home from work to their community," Fine said.
But he realizes that not all of the city's neighborhoods are areas with bike lanes, softball fields and houses of worship.
"We can look at the core areas and the older neighborhoods and find ways to reinvest appropriately so those neighborhoods can have the kind of quality of life they expect," Fine said.
In response to a question during a candidate's forum last month asking what he has done for the inner-city areas, Fine admitted, "I haven't done enough."
But he tempers that self-criticism, saying, "The reality is, I have the experience to build neighborhoods, to build communities where there's an opportunity for children to get a good education and the opportunity for the family to have a good quality of life."
After a recent candidates forum on downtown issues, one resident said he thought Fine was probably all talk.
"He says he'll take the same attitude with the whole city as he did when he was developing those fancy places," said Arnold Reyes, 58, who has lived just east of downtown for 14 years. "How come he didn't already try to help out?"
But some voters come away from a meeting with Fine feeling inspired by his vision to carefully plan out the city's growth and manage traffic, air pollution and economic stability.
After meeting Fine during a breakfast with Sun City Summerlin residents, John Randall said he appreciated the candidate's businesslike approach.
"I think he's done a good job for Summerlin, and if given a chance I think he would make a good mayor," said Randall, 67, who moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles two years ago.
Fine left Summerlin in 1994 to become managing director of the 10,625-acre Ritter Ranch development in Southern California's Antelope Valley.
He then started his own consulting business, Mark L. Fine & Associates, which has advised the developers of the $100 million high-rise luxury condominium complex, the Park at Hughes Center. Fine is also managing partner of Triad Development and a board member of the Fortress Group, a home builder.
It is those connections to developers that caused Fine some awkwardness early in the campaign.
At the first public candidates forum, Fine shied away from taking a position on whether to increase developers' impact fees to raise money for parks. Goodman favors such increases and is making it one of the planks of his platform.
"I think everyone needs to pay their fair share," Fine said. "Developers are already paying fees to offset the need for services. Is it enough? I'm not sure. But it's something to look at."
The shortage of parks throughout the city is one reason Goodman said he wanted to increase impact fees.
Fine, however, favors a bond issue to pay for new parks. He has served twice on a bond oversight committee for the Clark County School District.
In 1988 the committee on which Fine served was criticized for ineffectively spending the bond money and for building just 57 of 77 promised schools.
The 1994 bond oversight committee, on which Fine was vice chairman, went out of its way to rectify the problems of the previous bond.
Although education is not a direct responsibility of the mayor, Fine vows to focus much of his attention on schools. He was once state chairman of a national campaign to improve educational opportunities for gifted students. Fine also has been involved with the UNLV Foundation, the Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art and the Andre Agassi Foundation.
"You can't quantify the importance art can make in someone's life," Fine said. "A sculpture can open someone's mind to other possibilities. 'Shakespeare in the Park' can enrich educational opportunities."
Fine envisions those types of cultural extras for downtown Las Vegas.
"I'd like to see a farmers market, someplace where people can go and hear a concert," Fine said. "It will help bring energy back to downtown."
But before downtown can experience a revival, Fine said, businesses need to be lured back to the city's center.
Fine said he will work with UNLV to help attract businesses.
"If you look at the great cities of the world, there's always a great university," Fine said. "If we're going to attract those businesses, we're going to have to get behind our university."
He also said he would work with school district officials to improve standards and speed up the school construction process.
"We've got to help get our schools up to standards for all children, not just for the schools in some areas," Fine said during a forum on downtown issues. "We've got to create a community with equal opportunity for everyone."
Creating parity between city and county taxes is also one of Fine's main platform planks.
During an April 15 press conference Fine unveiled a plan to consolidate the city's Municipal Court with the county's Justice Court. The plan would save an an estimated $8 million, he said.
He would work as a "consensus builder" between the city and Clark County to try to make consolidation possible in a number of departments, he said.
"We should tackle these things one at a time. As for total consolidation, I think it could work but I'm not going to go there right now."
Another of Fine's ideas is merging the city attorney's office with the district attorney's office. He estimates that cost savings at $2.5 million.
Merging those departments would also eliminate about half the difference between city and county property tax rates, he said. County homeowners pay about $81 less a year on a $100,000 home than do their city counterparts.
But Adamsen said Fine's proposal is unrealistic.
"It's easy to say that's going to save money, but it would be very difficult to make that work," Adamsen said.
Fine said that although he focused on building residential communities, now he's committed to the whole city.
"This is a chance to focus on Las Vegas," said Fine, who began considering a run for mayor when his friend, current Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, ran for governor last year.
"I figured if I was ever going to do it, I'm at the peak of my knowledge and the peak of my abilities," Fine said. "It's unfortunate that my experience alone isn't enough to get me known."
Fine said he is campaigning 15 hours a day to try to catch Adamsen and Goodman in the polls.
"If I don't get elected, it's just that I don't have the name recognition," he said.
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