NLV gets lots of help with library name

By Mike Trask

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

We suggested the It’s About Time Library, a nod to the fact that the newest library in North Las Vegas has been in the planning stages for more than five years.

The city, however, will likely go for a simpler name.

The library near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alexander Road will probably be called the Alexander Library and Park.

That’s the name recommended by city staff out of 39 possibilities submitted online by residents.

Although Alexander Library and Park is nice and to the point, the city has some more colorful options, including naming it after some interesting folks.

Somebody offered Ralph Lloyd Denton, a well-known Nevada lawyer, as a namesake. Others suggested Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Eugene V. Debs, a union leader and Socialist Party candidate for president in the early 1900s.

Or they could go with the Hunter S. Thompson Memorial Library. Thompson famously called the city a “slum” in “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas,” a reference that’s still mentioned more than 35 years later.

Of course some people offered cute names — La Madre Mountain, The Laugh & Learn Library and The Get Smart Library.

The City Council will make the final call today. The 16,000-square-foot library, with an outdoor recreation area, is scheduled to open in 2009.

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North Las Vegas and the Clark County School District disagree over a proposed elementary school at Bruce Street and El Campo Grande Avenue.

The school would be across the street from the 3,000 pigs at R.C. Farms. Despite the objections of some neighbors, the school was approved in early 2007, with the stipulation that the School District widen Bruce Street.

Now the district doesn’t want to pay for the widening.

The Planning Commission last week recommended forcing the district to pick up the tab. The district did not have a representative at the meeting.

The City Council will make the final decision.

It isn’t the first time the district and the city have butted heads over road projects. The district once pulled a $70 million magnet school from North Las Vegas after the city demanded road improvements.

•••

Boulder City Mayor Roger Tobler gave his first State of the City address last week.

The topics were no surprise.

Tobler commented on the city’s need to pay about $25 million for its share of a new intake at Lake Mead.

“Projects like the third water intake present a real challenge,” Tobler said. “This is a project that on its own costs as much as our annual general fund budget.”

The mayor has said he thinks the city needs to consider selling some land to pay for the project. Selling land in Boulder City requires voter approval and many such ballot measures have failed.

The mayor also mentioned the opening of the Hoover Dam bridge and the much-discussed Boulder City bypass. Tobler said the city should hold out hope for a bypass, even as the bridge opens and sends thousands of cars and large trucks through the small town.

“Seeing this project through to its completion is something I believe we must do to maintain our quality of life and preserve our small-town feel,” he said.

Tobler also touched on water conservation and renewable energy, issues that affect all of Nevada but have special meaning in Boulder City, which is next to Lake Mead and has abundant desert space for solar power plants.