Quick and Dirty: a notebook of news and politics

Wendell returns

At last, the 2004 election campaign is getting interesting. Democratic Assemblyman Wendell Williams, the focal point of controversy last year, told the Review-Journal this week that he will seek re-election to a 10th term. Williams says he decided to run after his constituents in Assembly District 6 urged him to do so.

This move may come as a surprise to establishment types who probably assumed Williams was done with legislative service. But Williams and his supporters see things differently. From their perspective, Williams was a scapegoat in a larger scheme orchestrated by his employer, the city of Las Vegas, to exploit his legislative influence. In other words, where the mainstream saw Williams taking unfair advantage by receiving his city income while serving the state in Carson City, Williams and his supporters point to the fact that Williams' city bosses had no problem with this until the press uncovered it. Yet Williams gets in trouble and his bosses don't. Resident Tyrone Washington, interviewed by the R-J, put it this way: "I think a lot of Wendell's problems are a result of people trying to keep him down: the newspapers, the politicians and the people that work down there at City Hall."

Williams, very popular in his district before last year's scandals and apparently still quite popular there today, is likely to win re-election over Democratic challenger Harvey Munford and Republican Cornell Clark and return to Carson City in 2005. He isn't likely, however, to have the leadership position he has enjoyed during past sessions.

Less intriguing is Williams' claim to be writing a tell-all book called "Calculated Endangerment" about his life and the events of last year. This is a terribly unrealistic endeavor that, one hopes, will soon find its proper place in the dustbin of bad ideas.--GS

D.I. homes are history

After some legal wrangling, Steve Wynn recently reached an agreement to buy the 10 remaining homes in Desert Inn Estates for $23 million; now he can get on with that Wynn Las Vegas thing he's building. Still, the demolition of that handful of homes means goodbye to yet another sliver of Las Vegas history. Part of an original 84-home, 160-acre development that got under way in 1951, these homes were part of what was then called the Desert Inn Country Club Estates.

Sounds like ancient history now, but at the time, says Nevada State Museum and Historical Society Curator David Millman, the houses boasted features that were considered high-tech, such as weather stripping (i.e., rubber lining around doors and windows to keep out rain and dust), complete air conditioning and heating (not terribly common in the early '50s) and even a nifty thing called a garbage disposal. And much like new homes today can come pre-wired for broadband Internet, these were pre-wired for another burgeoning medium: television.

"It was certainly one of the first major developments for upper-class Las Vegans," says Millman. "And just as the casino business was shifting away from downtown, this marked the building of upscale housing developments away from downtown." Millman gets a chuckle out of the fact that the Estates were advertised as being perfect for "nostalgic Easterners"; it would surely be a hard sell in today's water-conscious climate.--AK

Green Valley's downtown

Downtown Las Vegas isn't the only downtown in Southern Nevada, you know. When Henderson's latest real estate project is unveiled this month, it will herald Green Valley's attempt to create its own vibrant urban core. Um, sure, it'll boast chain stores like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, but the design and architecture of the 25-acre, 400,000-square-foot project dubbed the District at Green Valley Ranch will set itself apart from your average park-and-crawl strip mall. Designed by Perlman Architects, the project sports all the earmarks of New Urbanist design, the stuff in vogue before the World War II baby boomers created a need for the suburbs.

"The project's laid out to be reminiscent of a main urban street, the way they used to be, with apartments, flats, lofts and, in some cases, second-floor offices over retail," says Howard Perlman, president of Perlman Architects. "This will have its own character, and it'll define the town center not just for Green Valley Ranch, but the whole Green Valley area. It really is a mixed-use project. It's got almost an equal proportion of residential, office and retail space."

And yes, Perlman uses the word synergy, but in this case, it applies. "To have a place where the activities of living, working and shopping are intertwined helps create a real heart, a real sense of identity," he says. Perlman adds that developer American Nevada Corp. took a chance on such an innovative project, but in the current real estate market, it also makes economic sense.

"Land is expensive, and you want to maximize it," Perlman says. "If you have a small project, mixed use isn't easy, but if it's large enough, you can a create a lot more synergy mixing office, residential and retail. And this is the best example of that.

"The other fun thing," he adds, "is that the District will get better with age. With the process of new tenants moving in, storefronts changing, more banners coming in and the trees maturing, it's going to get more and more character."--AK