Tuesday, May 6, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The battle over Red Rock Canyon is raging inside the state Legislative Building, where lawmakers are receiving hundreds of e-mails from those seeking protection for the natural site and others seeking to allow development nearby.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, was named as a lawmaker to contact in a three-page color ad run in Sunday's edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun.
He received more than 100 calls and e-mails on Monday as a result. But Perkins says the campaign is misdirected because he has not been involved in any of the discussions about state or Clark County efforts to limit development at the natural conservation area northwest of Las Vegas.
"Their tactics seem to be just to flood us with e-mails and calls," Perkins said. "It's annoying to some degree to have folks sending you a position that appears as though they don't fully understand, based on some of the questions we have asked them about why they feel the way they do."
Meanwhile the County Commission was to vote today on a resolution that would support a proposal by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., to use federal funds to buy the property and turn it over to the Bureau of Land Management.
The sides are expected to have a showdown Saturday in Las Vegas, when the Assembly Government Affairs Committee meets at the Sawyer State Office Building to consider Senate Bill 358, which would freeze zoning near Red Rock. The Clark County Commission also has proposed an overlay district that would restrict development in the area.
Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the government affairs committee, said he received a phone call Monday from developer Jim Rhodes, but had not yet returned the call.
"I assume he wants me to visit the land he owns," Manendo said. "But I really don't have time before the hearing."
Manendo said he has received between 300 and 400 e-mails from people on both sides of the issue.
SB358 says local governments shall not increase the number of residential dwellings allowed by present zoning regulations or establish any new non-residential zoning districts in the lands adjacent to the Red Rock area.
Perkins said people against SB358 sent him form e-mails telling him the state should not limit Rhodes' ability to develop his land.
"I've gotten e-mails from across the country from people who have visited Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon and say they don't want us to develop it," Manendo said.
Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, who sponsored SB358, said she has not had any contact with Rhodes and said the three-page ad contains misinformation designed to sway public opinion.
"I started working on this last session and re-requested it before he even bought the property," Titus said. "This shows he's pulling out all the stops, and the more he does, the more it shows us we need this bill."
In Clark County staff members at Commissioner Mark James' office said they received some phone calls and e-mails prompted by the ad.
By Monday afternoon, James' office had received about 20 phone calls, with about 15 against the development and five for it. About 70 e-mails the office received were running about 50-50 for and against.
About 90 percent of the e-mails supporting the development, however, were form e-mails.
Brown and Partners, the firm that created the ad, said they had not received any calls or e-mails about the advertisement.
Gov. Kenny Guinn has said he understands the importance of protecting the canyon from development.
"The governor supports the concept of preserving the Red Rock Canyon," Guinn's spokesman Greg Bortolin said.
And while Guinn will ultimately have a say in any bill that passes the Legislature, his office in Las Vegas only received just one e-mail on the topic Monday.
Developer Jim Rhodes pressed his case for developing Blue Diamond Hill to protecting the Red Rock National Conservation Area in a newspaper ad, television ads and TV appearances.
"What you see behind me is the devastation from 80 years of gypsum mining," Rhodes says on a TV ad. "I bought this land because I believe I can improve it."
Rhodes could immediately build 1,400 homes on the property based on the current zoning, he said.
"I could build houses right now, but I prefer to wait and build homes for teachers and for nurses and for doctors," he said during an interview on KLAS-TV Channel 8 Monday night.
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