Southwest Las Vegas Park Projects Stalled After Settlement
Clark County Commissioners and local real estate developer Jim Rhodes have had their horns locked for a while. It led to the county agreeing to shell out $80 million in a settlement to avoid a potentially far more devastating judgment. Two Southwest Las Vegas park projects are getting caught in the crossfire.
What Is This Settlement About?
If you haven’t been keeping up with the story, it all stems from land south of Red Rock Canyon Recreation Area known as Blue Diamond Hill. The area, currently being used as a Gypsum mine for Rhodes’ Gypsum Resources, has been ripe for housing development. Organizations like Save Red Rock did what they could to stand in their way. That is well within their right.
What was not, Rhodes alleges, is conspiring at the County level to try to stop the project. Commissioner Justin Jones was actually sanctioned for deleting text messages that were pertinent to the case. It had the County facing a judgment that could have been in excess of $2 billion. That left Clark County with no other choice but to settle.
But $80 million doesn’t come out of thin air. That is where Southwest Las Vegas park projects will feel it the most.
Southwest Las Vegas Park Projects Take Brutal Financial Hit
For those living in the burgeoning southwest valley, you know the growth is explosive and resources have not necessarily kept up. Mountain’s Edge didn’t get a grocery store until the mid-2010s. But from Rhodes Ranch points south, the public amenities have been lacking compared to peers in other parts of the valley.
Two Southwest Las Vegas park projects that were approved and ready to go were the Mountain’s Edge Recreation Center serving the roughly 43,000 people in that community, and the James Regional Recreation Center that was planned to be added to the James Regional Sports Park behind Smith’s on Durango and Warm Springs.
Unfortunately the settlement has put a bit of a hampering on those plans.
According to 8 News Now, Clark County Parks are getting hit with the bill of just over half of the $80 million settlement bill. Every district is taking a $5 million hit. But these two Southwest Las Vegas park projects are seeing a chunk taken out of them independently, despite having just been approved in March.
Nearly $3 million was removed from the James Regional Recreation Center project, which KLAS says has that project on hold. Meanwhile, the Mountain’s Edge Recreation Center, in Commissioner Jones’s district, saw a $1.6 million cut. The Mountain’s Edge development, likely to be a part of the long-stalled and incomplete Mountain’s Edge Regional Park, is the biggest blow. The neighborhood is arguably the furthest away from any county community center.
It’s kind of like when the one kid in class acts foolish and the entire class gets punished.
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