Clark County to host meeting about possible new city

Clark County commissioners say they want to hear firsthand why a committee of citizens is exploring creating a new city on the eastern side of the Las Vegas Valley.

Commissioners will hold a town hall meeting from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Hollywood Recreation Center, 1650 S. Hollywood Blvd.

Small-business owner and state Assembly candidate Brandon Casutt and other residents have begun gauging interest in combining the unincorporated towns of Sunrise Manor and Whitney into a single city. Doing so would create Nevada’s third-largest city, home to more than 260,000 residents.

A name for the city has not been decided.

“I’m hoping this is a two-way conversation so that the organizers have an opportunity to pitch this to their neighbors as well as us,” Commissioner Jim Gibson said.

County staff will outline the incorporation process during the meeting. Discussion is planned for topics including police and fire protection, infrastructure and tax revenue distribution among local governments.

Gibson and fellow commissioners Chris Giunchigliani, Marilyn Kirkpatrick and Lawrence Weekly — whose districts cover almost all the land in the Valley east of Interstate 15 — will host the town hall.

Weekly, a former Las Vegas city councilman, said it is the commissioners’ duty to help residents of the towns determine if incorporation is right for them.

“I don’t think it’s an easy feat to run a city,” he said. “Could it be done? Possibly. Would it be an uphill battle with trials and tribulations along the way? Absolutely.”

Casutt said the county has not directly contacted his committee about the meeting or their proposal.

“We’re puzzled about how they’re going to comment on a proposal they haven’t seen,” he said.

An informal town hall hosted by Casutt and other members of his committee this month showed that even the idea of creating a city is an emotional one for many. At times audience members shouted at one another.

Some said the best way to invest money into neighborhood roads and parks would be to create their own government. Others said doing so would take a toll on their pocketbooks via new taxes.

Casutt said the new city wouldn’t need to raise property taxes, because it would be entitled to a larger portion of the county’s consolidated tax revenue, which is distributed to local governments.

“Zero people on the committee have intentions of raising property taxes,” he said.

But Giunchigliani contends that wouldn’t be enough to cover the costs of local police, fire and other government services.

“If folks want to move to the petition process (to create a city), that’s totally their right to do so, but they need to know what the potential outcomes will be,” she said.

Kirkpatrick could not be reached for comment, but she wrote in a statement that residents need to know “what creating a new city could mean for their taxes and how it would impact the local government services they receive.”

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.