Teller-led watchdog group to keep people informed via Internet

They may live in rural Clark County with unpaved roads, abandoned cars and horse stables, but residents in the southwest are far from back-country folks when it comes to government watchdogging.

These neighbors are headed for cyberspace.

And leading the way is magician and comedian Teller, which means this group's soon-to-be-built watchdog website will provide information about the Clark County Commission with a touch of humor.

"It will have a lot of information that will be real clear and real frank," said Teller, of Penn & Teller fame. "But we need to do it in a way that's funny. People don't pay attention to things that don't make them laugh or don't make them scared.

"Surprises delivered to citizens -- that's funny," he said wryly. "The way elected officials act toward their contributors -- comedy."

Gone are the days of shuffling door to door in the heat to inform neighbors of controversial projects proposed for their neighborhood. Soon dozens of people will be notified with the tap of a "send" key.

Teller and nearby residents first banded together months ago when they learned that a garbage transfer station had been planned in their neighborhood. They fought the project and Silver State Disposal Inc. dropped its proposal.

"We barely found out in time," neighbor Randy Griggs said. "So now we're watching."

The group doesn't have a website yet, but it has used e-mail to distribute facts about its next battle: an extension request for a zone change.

Commissioners on Wednesday will decide whether to grant a property owner an extension on a 32-acre parcel that was zoned light industrial two years ago. If the request is denied, the zoning reverts back to residential.

The neighborhood group doesn't mind the existing light industrial zoning, it simply wants to know what will be built on the land just south of the Rainbow Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road intersection.

It feels duped that the landowner initially planned an office building and a storage yard, then turned around and tried to sell the land to Silver State for the transfer station.

Commissioners be warned: When they consider the extension Wednesday, they may face the new and improved media-savvy neighborhood organization. Members gathered Monday to plot their big debut.

High on the printed agenda was coming up with a name. They tossed aside the common title, "Concerned Citizens Coalition," and opted for a more catchy name -- the Southwest Action Network (SWAN).

Next was how to promote the group. Wear buttons sporting their new name? Yes. Make signs to attract television news cameras? Definitely. Talk to the media no matter what the outcome of the meeting? Absolutely.

Attach a banner to a biplane? Save that strategy to advertise its information hotline number, which will offer a humorous recorded message that keeps residents in the southwest region of the valley up to date.

And so while Teller is performing for the nation on the Today program Wednesday morning and on Late Night with David Letterman later that day, his neighborhood group will be putting on a show of their own in the commission chambers.

That isn't to say the comedian won't be thinking of his Nevada neighbors while in the Big Apple -- he may appear on national television sporting a SWAN pin on his lapel.

Even though commissioners may never have faced such an energetic band of neighbors, Teller simply described the organization as an information-exchange group.

"We're just well-organized friends," Teller said.

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