Strip hotels complain of fees for medians

Circus Circus Enterprises pays $50,000 a year to maintain a concrete barrier that runs down the middle of the Strip in front of the Excalibur hotel-casino.

And that, according to Strip casino attorneys, is why Clark County must develop a new formula to assess Strip property owners for the maintenance of landscaping in the Las Vegas Boulevard median.

"There is not one shred of landscaping," said Mike Sloan, who represents Circus Circus Enterprises. "The Excalibur and the Tropicana pay $100,000 a year to maintain a concrete barrier."

More than 100 properties that line Las Vegas Boulevard are assessed annually to allow Clark County to water, prune and repair the palm trees, bushes and lighting that decorate the median.

The county charges businesses $34.04 per linear foot of property that lines the Strip. For the Flamingo-Hilton, which stretches across 960 feet of Las Vegas Boulevard, that amounts to nearly $33,000 a year.

Flamingo-Hilton attorney Chris Yergenson, Sloan and Mark Fiorentino, who represents Caesars Palace, asked county commissioners to change the formula so that businesses pay by the square footage of landscaping in the median in front of the properties.

Fiorentino said the median in front of Caesars has a skinny piece of landscaping; the casino pays $61,000 a year in landscape maintenance fees.

Commissioners expressed concern about the amount of time it would take to change the ordinance. Commissioner Erin Kenny said re-wording the ordinance would be a lengthy process that would require the county to work with more than 100 properties.

"Working with the property owners and working together would be faster than the possible legal challenges to the district," Fiorentino countered.

While only four of the property owners -- Excaliber, Mirage, Flamingo and Caesars -- expressed concern about the county's formula, Public Works Director Marty Manning said they make up 22 percent of the $1.2 million assessment base.

The commission agreed to look into developing a new ordinance that would change the formula for the year 2000.

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