The Local Newsroom
About Town
Dawn of the Master Plan
More than 40 years ago, Spring Valley set the tone for Las Vegas’ future
March 7th, 2013
From Hank Greenspun to Jim Rhodes, Las Vegas developers have always had a gift for looking at raw desert and seeing visions of suburban paradise. Such was the case for the Pardee brothers—Doug, Hoyt and George—who in 1969 started Southern Nevada’s master-planned community craze. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
Keeping a Season Ahead
March 7th, 2013
The original boutique hotel-within-a-hotel on the Strip, the Four Seasons, is generating some buzz of its own with a two-phase renovation that’s just started its second half. Sharing the Mandalay Bay complex with the Delano Las Vegas, it’s got something the other boutique projects don’t: a history in town. Read more »
Seven Questions
Seven Questions for Patti Novak
The matchmaker on being a straight shooter with clients, her own dating mistakes and why love at first sight is a fallacy
February 28th, 2013
It's not that her clients can't get dates, says professional matchmaker Patti Novak. It's that their time is limited. Or they're sick of the bar scene. Or they want a little more privacy and safety than online dating affords. And then there are clients with broken "pickers"; they seem to match themselves with the same—wrong—type of mate over and over. Novak was a natural-born picker. Especially for others. Read more »
Price of Safety
February 21st, 2013
People enjoy parodying the National Rifle Association’s mantra: Guns don’t kill people; bullets/rappers/Chuck Norris do(es). The NRA itself has provided the latest update: Guns don’t kill people; the mentally ill do. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
A Game-Changing Scholar
February 21st, 2013
Bill Eadington, quite possibly the formative figure in the academic study of gambling, died on February 11 at age 67. Even if you weren’t one of his students, never read one of his books or never heard him speak, you’ve benefited from his work. Read more »
Seven Questions
Seven Questions for Mike Newcomb
The Sam Boyd Stadium and Thomas & Mack Center boss on rugby’s appeal, UNLV’s proposed mega-events center and who’d be favored in a rugby fan vs. cowboy throw-down
February 7th, 2013
To put it bluntly, Mike Newcomb’s job is to put asses in seats—as many as possible, as often as possible and however possible. So when a group of officials from USA Sevens rugby came to Las Vegas several years ago to discuss the possibility of relocating North America’s premier rugby tournament from San Diego to Sam Boyd Stadium, Newcomb—then second-in-command and now executive director of the Thomas & Mack Center, Sam Boyd Stadium and the Cox Pavilion—didn’t flinch. “We’re always looking for new stuff to do,” he says, “and we’re not afraid to take a risk.” Then the USA Sevens folks spelled out their plan. “We were like, ‘What? The games are only 16 minutes long? And there are 44 of them in two days? How does this work?’” Read more »
The Latest Thought
The Case for Interstate 11
As the second Obama term begins, Nevada’s wish list should start with a vital connection to the south
January 17th, 2013
Interstate 11 is also consistent with Gov. Brian Sandoval’s economic development program, which has identified logistics and operations as a key industry sector. Phoenix is already a major shipping hub, and once the port in Punta Colonet, Mexico, is completed, the need for warehousing, freight logistics and distribution centers will increase. That means more business investment and job creation in Southern Nevada. Read more »
Seven Questions
Seven Questions for Richard Bryan
Nevada’s former governor and U.S. senator on political dysfunction, the benefits of the Electoral College and his affinity for cupcakes
January 17th, 2013
Richard Bryan was twice elected as both Nevada governor (1983-89) and a U.S. senator (1989-2001), but throughout a near-hourlong conversation, the 75-year-old Democrat is as cordial and down-home as your grandfather. With a contentious election season in the rear-view mirror—and an inauguration in D.C. and a legislative session in Carson City around the corner—we thought it an ideal time to catch up with the statesman and take his pulse on the current goings-on in his old world. Read more »
Politics
A Model of Integrity
January 17th, 2013
Gene Segerblom, a lifelong teacher and longtime legislator, died on January 4 at age 94. She lived well, traveled widely and did everything she wanted to do, except stay around longer. Her husband Cliff was an artist, and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith described her Boulder City home as “one part poem, one part art museum.” You can be a politician and still be interested in other things. Read more »
Can This Plan Make Our Med School Great?
January 17th, 2013
The University of Nevada School of Medicine is an icon of Nevada’s north-south civil war over public-program funding. The school’s dean, Thomas L. Schwenk, took less than a year to figure that out and another year to develop a more productive paradigm. In 2013, he’ll begin the long process of getting his plan put in place. Read more »
