Tuesday, May 13, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.
The Assembly Government Affairs Committee dealt a blow to developer Jim Rhodes' plans to build a golf course community next door to Red Rock Canyon, voting 12-1 Monday for new restrictions around the conservation area.
The vote came two days after a rancorous hearing in Las Vegas on Senate Bill 358, which freezes zoning in the area, including the James Hardie Gypsum Mine where Rhodes want to build. The five-hour-long hearing drew 1,000 people, many of them Rhodes supporters wearing distinctive blue shirts with the words "A mine is a terrible thing to waste."
Rhodes bought the 2,500 acres on top of Blue Diamond Hill, an active gypsum mining site surrounded on three sides by the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, in March, though he said he'd been in escrow for the property for two years.
Rhodes has mounted a furious promotional and legal campaign to block SB358 and companion restrictions proposed on the Clark County level.
Assemblyman Ron Knecht, R-Carson City, was the lone committee vote in Rhodes' favor. Knecht said Monday he was reserving his right to change his vote on the floor.
"I am not yet persuaded that this is a necessary reason for kicking a land-use matter to state government," Knecht said.
Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce, D-Las Vegas, who made the motion, said that "in the same way the state has an opinion about what goes on at Lake Tahoe, the state has an opinion about Red Rock Canyon."
Assemblyman Chad Christensen, R-Las Vegas, whose district includes the Red Rock Canyon Preservation Area, said his constituents want the area "completely protected."
"This is where we need to draw a line in the sand and protect this phenomenal area," Christensen said.
Rhodes and his supporters say development of the hilltop would be preferable to continued mining, and would provide money for the full environmental restoration of the scarred mining area. Rhodes also insists that the impact of the development on the surrounding area would be minimal.
Rhodes' spokesmen declined comment following Monday's vote.
Opponents of development on Blue Diamond Hill include residents of the tiny village of Blue Diamond, environmentalists and regular visitors to Red Rock Canyon, and they have strongly supported the state legislation.
Pauline van Betten, a Blue Diamond resident and a leader in the effort to stymie the development, said the Assembly Government Affairs Committee vote was critical to her side.
"It's fabulous," she said. "I thought this vote was pivotal."
The state bill, proposed by Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, freezes zoning at one home for every two acres. The vote will add impetus to the county development restrictions, which are scheduled for a vote next week, van Betten said.
The local ordinance includes restrictions on where homes could be built and how infrastructure would serve any homes on the hill.
"Together, they're a really, really solid package," she said. "I still think it's a bad Plan B, but if development followed all those regulations it would really mitigate impact on the canyon."
The debate on the issue has been increasingly rancorous.
Rhodes' brought six busloads of supporters to the Sawyer State Office Building for the Saturday hearing, part of a media, political and legal blitz that has included a lawsuit against Clark County Commissioner Mark James, a former political ally who represents the area, to block the local ordinance.
Campers parked behind orange cones in the public parking lot served doughnuts, coffee and bottled water as the crowd snaked from the front of the building, through the lobby and into the fourth floor hall. All seats in the hearing room were filled by 8 a.m.
"We knew there was trouble, just from seeing all the buses," said Hermi Hiatt of the Red Rock Audubon Society of Las Vegas.
"We ought to have had it at Thomas & Mack," Titus said as she tried to find speakers invited by the committee to testify.
Some supporters of the bill said they were intimidated by the Rhodes crowd.
One of those stuck in the hallway in a sea of blue T-shirts was Michael Ford, Great Basin director of the Conservation Fund.
"All of the people that confronted me were all part of the Rhodes group," said Ford, who arrived at 7:30 a.m. for the 9 a.m. hearing. "And that harassment started for me before I ever entered the building."
Ford said even the developer confronted him.
"Jim Rhodes said, 'Hey, this guy is cutting the line,' " Ford said. "He tried to make it very confrontational. It is indicative of how Rhodes and his people conspired to deny people the right to participate in the process."
Ford said he asked people why they had come. "Most did not know, or said they were there because Jim asked them to," he said.
"I was shocked that the state allowed that to go on," Ford said. "It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate people."
Pat Williams of the Friends of Red Rock Canyon, a volunteer group, said that she barely got out of the elevator, and once she arrived at the room, she was blocked by a sign-in table.
"I had to crawl under the table to get a seat," Williams said.
Helen Cannon, 85, a Clark County educator for decades, said she waited a long time in the packed hallway to the meeting room. "I didn't know how much longer I could stand," she said.
"The door was shut so I thought the room was full," said Cannon, who walks with a cane. Someone cut a path to an empty chair on the side of the room for her.
Government Affairs Chairman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, scolded Rhodes for the behavior of some of his supporters.
Manendo said a private company hired by Rhodes and serving as security was only permitting those wearing blue shirts to enter the hearing room or the adjunct room to watch on the hearing on television.
"I'm personally very offended by that," Manendo said.
State law says public hearings "must be open and public, and all persons must be permitted to attend any meeting of these bodies."
Dean Walker, Rhodes Homes director of land development, dismissed the charge.
"That's prepos terous," Walker said. "I was there from 6:30 (a.m.) on, and I didn't see anyone intimidating anyone."
He said some of the Rhodes supporters formed "an orderly line" entering the hearing room, and may have objected to others trying to cut through the line.
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