Preservationist plans fundraiser here to boost Vegas image in D.C.

By Joe Schoenmann

Sunday, April 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The idea of Las Vegas as a hub of preservation or even a place where the community actively thinks about saving old buildings — well, let’s just say it’s strange.

Isn’t this a city built on the ruins of the “old,” which is gloriously imploded every couple of years?

That’s how many see the city. But a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for preservation issues got a different view.

Heather MacIntosh, president of Preservation Action, was so inspired by her visit to Las Vegas last month that she hopes to build on contacts made here to strengthen the presence of Nevada, and other Western states, in the nation’s capital.

Preservation Action is co-sponsoring a June 14 fundraiser in Las Vegas to possibly expand her two-person operation, enabling more outreach and efforts on behalf of Nevada.

“Preservation Action needs to spend more time listening and working with communities, especially in the West, if we can ever expect to improve opportunities for preservationists nationwide,” she wrote in an e-mail to several contacts she met in Las Vegas.

She says she’d like to make Las Vegas one of her organization’s Western bases.

“Preservation there is simply different from preservation back East — and unfortunately the West gets short shrift in Congress because legislators can’t see clearly that your history (although newer in a lot of cases) is just as important to community building as it is in the East.”

•••

If you’re not with the city, then you obviously must be a hater.

So goes the philosophy of Councilman Ricki Barlow, who objected to “pundits” who might criticize the Las Vegas City Council’s decision Wednesday to approve a preliminary deal to build a $150 million City Hall.

Planned for First Street, between Lewis and Clark avenues, the 251,000-square-foot building would be built by Live-Work Las Vegas LLC. Moving into the building in 2011, city officials would lease it for $10 million annually.

Mayor Oscar Goodman gave a fiery speech defending the proposal against those who might say this is not the time, amid an economic downturn, to move forward with such a project.

Barlow agreed with Goodman.

“Mayor, council?” Barlow said. “We’re going to take our hits, and I’m willing to take those hits, because we’re placing our city above and beyond other cities in bringing the variety of diversification into this city, which has long been needed for the entire community.

“Continue to do what you do — hate. Because that’s your job and we’ll continue to do what we do, and that’s be the true visionaries of this community.”

Later, before the council approved rezoning and variances for a proposed resort on the site of the Moulin Rouge on Bonanza Road, Barlow once again referred to media pundits as “haters.”

Some have doubted the efficacy of the project because the site is amid soup kitchens and other gathering places for the homeless and the disenfranchised. Over the years, proposals for remodeling and renewing the landmark have come before the City Council and gone.

“Their job is to be exactly what they are, and that’s haters,” Barlow said. “Let the haters hate.”

•••

Sure, there are works of graffiti worthy of being called art. But mostly, graffiti consists of unintelligible but to gang members, black spray-painted lettering on residential walls, utility poles and electrical boxes — an eyesore.

To make residents more aware — and to paint over this dreck — the city announced April as Graffiti Awareness Month. Residents can call 229-6615 for free paint and supplies from the city to paint over graffiti in their neighborhoods.