{"id":1347,"date":"2009-11-13T12:40:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T20:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2021-05-28T07:10:22","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T15:10:22","slug":"what-a-difference-four-years-makes-lowden-follies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/what-a-difference-four-years-makes-lowden-follies\/","title":{"rendered":"What a difference four years makes; Lowden follies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the course of correcting the record about former North Las Vegas<\/strong> mayor — and current gubernatorial aspirant — Michael Montandon<\/strong> (R) on a different Web site, I had to cause to dust off an old press clipping<\/a>. Back when Montandon was mayor and taking a go-slow attitude toward casino expansion in NLV, Station Casinos<\/strong> claimed to be totally down with Hizzoner’s approach.<\/p>\n

Well, that sure changed when Boyd Gaming<\/strong> was able to swap a gambling-enabled parcel it inherited from Coast Casinos<\/strong> and trade it for acreage within what was to have been Gary Goett<\/strong>‘s northern counterpart to Southern Highlands<\/strong>. (The gaming entitlement was removed from the former Coast site and transplanted to Goett’s.)<\/p>\n

\"aliante\"<\/p>\n

While this didn’t increase the number of prospective casino sites in NLV, it was evidently enough to get Station’s corporate shorts in a wad. Ergo the subsequent and ongoing insistence that it be allowed to build Losee Station<\/strong> on non-gaming-entitled land it held near the Goett project. Never mind that Station had benefited — twice<\/em> — from the same kind of one-for-one tradeoff that enabled Boyd to move up to the 215.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Station was incensed that Montandon had gone back his public stance regarding Goett’s Olympia Development Group<\/strong>: “Are they going to be allowed a casino on their site as well? I am not in favor of that<\/em>.” However, since Montandon was able to preserve his goal of not adding casino sites<\/em> by allowing Boyd to pick up and move, his position holds (slightly) more intellectual water than did Station’s ensuing umbrage. (You’ll also note from the article that Aliante Station<\/strong> [above<\/em>] went from $450 million to an ultimate $662 million — a 47% cost overrun.)<\/p>\n

As has been covered here, Station and Boyd conducted a proxy war in the last North Las Vegas mayoral election. Since Station’s candidate won, we could — economic development permitting — see a very different casino landscape in NLV. Then again, I’ve been told the problem with the locals market isn’t that people haven’t ceased going to the casino — that much is obvious — but that for every five bucks they used to drop, they’re now spending two. So whether Montandon’s go-slow policy remains in place or not, the economy has applied its own set of brakes to northward expansion.<\/p>\n

Sue Lowden<\/strong>. As a political candidate, she makes a helluva casino executive. Or maybe not, if she thinks a 21-point loss translates into a victorious “sweep.” Since Lowden is Archon Corp<\/strong>.’s treasurer, you have to wonder how it keeps its books balanced, in light of Ms. Lowden’s mad math skillz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the course of correcting the record about former North Las Vegas mayor — and current gubernatorial aspirant — Michael Montandon (R) on a different Web site, I had to cause to dust off an old press clipping. Back when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,60,14,26,41,78,33,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29633,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/29633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}