Interview with Jan Laverty Jones



MJ:  Mayor Jones, thank you for joining us today. 

JJ:  Pleasure to be here.



MJ:  Well tell us about this great city, now how long have you been mayor,

and...

JJ:  Oh, I was elected in 1991 in the primary and was just reelected in

1994, so five years.   Was elected right when Las Vegas was on the cusp of

becoming the fastest growing city in America.  We've had phenomenal growth

in the last 10 years, we've not only doubled our population, but we've

doubled our tourist population from 15 million to 30 million. And what you

see happening  in Las Vegas today is not only a metamorphosis of the resort

areas, but of the neighborhoods as well. 



MJ:  There is so much construction going on in this city right now. Is

there any concern that you may build too much... for people?

JJ:  You know, it's interesting there was in fact, they were projecting a

slow-down in 1996, but what we've seen with the most recent figures is that

we've actually increased our construction and our housing and our new

development this year over last year. So we really don't see a downturn, in

fact by the year 1998, we'll have a hundred thousand hotel rooms on line,

that's up from 93,000 currently, we're planning a multi-million dollar

expansion of the convention authority which is already the second largest

convention facility in America and the largest facility under one roof. 

We're #

aggressively looking to diversify the economic base -- bring in new

businesses,

professional, technical, higher paying jobs so that in essence we're

creating a city that is not entirely resort-dependent, but has a very well

founded community, mixed retail, commercial, manufacturing, industrial

base, and then of course, the premier resort destination in the world.



MJ:  Now when you have your National Association of meetings of Mayors and

conferences and so forth, do you see a lot of other female mayors? My sense

is that there aren't a lot of big-city female mayors.

JJ:  Not a lot of big- city female mayors.  You are seeing a trend towards

more female elected officials, there is an increasing number of mayors, but

generally not of the big cities.  I think that Las Vegas is one of the few

that had the foresight to elect a woman.



MJ:  Are you the first female mayor of Las Vegas?

JJ:  Yes I am. First female elected to any position in the city of Las

Vegas.  You can always believe in starting at the top.



MJ:  What is different about you that they decided they wanted to elect a

female mayor?  Is there something about you, or the times, or what?

JJ: I think at the time, first of all you have a significantly changing

demographic base.  You have people coming in from all over the country

moving to Las Vegas for a variety of reasons; for jobs, for retiring, it's

a very favorable city for retirees.  So you have a new voting public who

doesn't have a lot of old preconceptions.  And I think that what people

found attractive about my candidacy is that I came out of the private

sector, I had run major 

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corporations, I believe that  government could be run like a business, and

although I don't entirely believe that today, I think that many business

principles still apply:  a sense of urgency, recognizing that you need to

be customer service oriented and that the public is your customer, and that

the job of government is to assist not to aggravate the public.  And I

think that's what people were looking for; for spirit, for an

entrepeneureal approach and for, you know, a true love and affection of the

city.



MJ:  Now you are a democrat, correct?

JJ:  I am a democrat.



MJ:  Are you sort of "super-partisan" or above partisanship here in the

city?

JJ:  Yes, in fact the mayor selection in the city of Las Vegas is non-

partisan.  So you're elected by both democrats and hopefully republicans as

well.  And I've always felt that my whole approach is moderate, that, you

know, you have to be fiscally responsible, you have to look for ways to

generate the highest return on the invested dollar and that element at

least, can apply in government.



MJ: Can you give us a little bit of a history of Las Vegas?

JJ:  Well Las Vegas was really founded by Union Pacific Railroad.  It - the

town really grew up because it was a railroad stop when gaming was approved

in the middle of the desert, you did see small gaming establishments, but

really it didn't grow, they were limited to Fremont Street, until Bugsy

Segal came in and opened the Flamingo and that ushered in an entire era of

this old perception of  Las Vegas as organized crime, and fast living, and

sin city, but 

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that really changed in the early sixties with Howard Hughes.  Because when

Howard Hughes came in and bought the Sands, and the Desert Inn, and I think

there was one other hotel, he started fully reporting all of his income,

which is- that's when you really saw the change, by the early 1800's that

old image of Las Vegas as being controlled by the mob was entirely gone. 

Today Las Vegas is corporate America.  Almost every major gaming company is

traded on the public exchange. You've got major corporations... ITT

Sheraton, Hilton corporation, Mirage, MGM really taking over management of

these multi-billion dollar corporations.  There's been a change, I know

when I was first elected the headlines ran "Sin City Savior".  Well Sin

City didn't really need to be saved, it needed to evolve into an image of

Las Vegas that was more reflective of the reality, which is, we have

probably the  the premier resort destination.  We're still the only place

in the country where the average room rate is fifty five dollars a night,

and yet you can come and have a variety of entertainment from some of the

finest theater entertainment:  Siegfried and Roy, Michael Crawford and EFX,

Starlight Express, to golf courses, swimming, hiking, skiing, gambling,

great restaurants, headliners from Barbara Streisand to Wayne Newton, that

there's something for everyone.  And gaming has become an element.  You

recognize that people can come here and bring their families and there are

things you can do together as a family that are entirely separate from the

gaming environment.



MJ:  We've noticed a lot of theme parks - roller coasters, which we didn't

see before.  Is that a conscious move, and who's behind that?

JJ:  That's really the gaming industry recognizing as they become"centers

for entertainment rather than just casinos.  And that as you're a center

for 

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entertainment, I think you can look at the Mirage; they have everything

from volcanoes, to dolphin tanks, to white tigers, to giant outdoor pool

extravaganzas with slides.  New York, New York, which has the world's

largest roller coaster right in the center of the hotel, but it's themed to

be a part of the whole Coney Island, New York New York theme.  We're

testing the concept certainly some have been great successes, Treasure

Island and the pirates, downtown, with the Fremont Street Experience, which

is the most sophisticated light and sound show in the world.  It has 100

gigabytes of computer technology, 2 million, 100 thousand high-intensity

lights, a 540 megawatt sound system, and the capacity to project any kind

of image you can imagine into a choreographed light and sound show, which

is free.  It's almost like Las Vegas has become a giant theme park where

each hotel is a different ride, similar to Disneyland, where you have

"Adventureland,"  and "Tomorrowland," and "Fantasyland," we have that as

well, but it's in these giant, themed entertainment centers.



MJ:  In what ways are the laws of either Las Vegas or Nevada different from

other states or cities?

JJ:  You know, you'd be very surprised, really not very different at all

there's a  largely held misconception that prostitution is legal in Las

Vegas, when in fact it's illegal throughout our county.  We have some of

the finest levels of public safety, police enforcement, as people say to me

"...well don't you see rising crime in Las Vegas?" Compared to other big

cities, our crime is really at very low numbers and you have to recognize

that many of those statistics take into account number of police calls with

set population, not taking into account that we have 30 million visitors a

year...

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MJ:  Tourists...

JJ: ...coming in.  And I always say, "What other big city can you imagine

walking around at three in the morning with bucket fulls of dollars and

feeling very, very safe, very few.  We have when you look at Las Vegas,

very good ordinances, particularly downtown, where we can limit

panhandling, some of the problems you find in other cities by being

accosted, this was through our pedestrian mall ordinance ordinance,

although still on the Las Vegas strip we have some problems with people

passing out unseemly literature, but that's really a federal problem

because of first amendment rights.



MJ:  So prostitution is legal in some parts, or not at all?

JJ:  Not at all.



MJ:  Not at all.

JJ: Not legal at all.



MJ:  That's a big misconception.

JJ:  Big misconception.



MJ:  What about with the laws with regard to  marriage?  How does that....

JJ:  Now there's a difference.  In Las Vegas you can get married and

divorced still relatively easily.  24 hours and you can tie the knot.  



MJ:  And the rest of the states are...?

JJ:  There's s usually a waiting period.  , we still, we certainly require

the 

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blood test, but you can apply for a license and within 24 hours be married

and you can decide you want to be divorced and accomplish that as well.



MJ:  What about your own history here...What has your life been like?

JJ:  Well I actually, I moved here in 1981 from California.  I was working

for a company called Thrifty Mart Smart and Final, I did all their... I was

their vice president of research and development and we had supermarkets in

Las Vegas. The demographics were changing it was just before the towns

phenomenal growth  began, and I was sent by the company to look at the

stores and see could we change how we marketed, did we want to keep the

stores, did we want to  sell them.  What's unique is the stores actually

had sixty slot machines, 15 per store.  And when you looked at the revenues

that were being generated by the slot machines you saw that actually that's

where all the profit was in the business itself.  I went from there into

the automobile business.  I was the president of a company called Fletcher

Jones Management Group for seven years, and then I ran for mayor, and here

I am today.  Actually I only came to Las Vegas for a year... how it...how

things change.



MJ:  What made you,  what where the catalysts in your decisions to run for

mayor?

JJ:  It actually was...it was at a very critical time in Las Vegas'

history, the last mayor had decided not to run because of some perceived 

problems.  And the far and away front runner was an existing city

councilman who I believed and the business community believed was not the

image we wanted at that time, and they... particularly a group of very

politically active women said "why don't you run for mayor?"and I think the

real deciding factor is that the 

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political powers that were at that time, when presented with my candidacy

said "Oh, don't be ridiculous, she could never win." And so the dye was

cast and I said "watch this."  Woke up the morning after the election and

thought "What have I done?"



MJ:  What were the numbers like in the election?

JJ:  I won with,  52 percent of the vote in the primary in a field of 15

candidates...so...



MJ:  Now you have to work with the city council...

JJ:  Yes.



MJ:  Do they give you the kind of respect and admiration that they would

give a man? Or is it a different...how do you feel about that?

JJ:  You know, I really believe that in business as well as politics,

respect isn't predicated on gender.  It's predicated on how you conduct

yourself.  You earn respect, you're not owed respect.  I think I've always

been a very efficient and capable manager, and I think that I work very

well with the council.  Certainly we have our disagreements,  sometimes on

a myriad of issues, but I feel very comfortable that I can hold together my

votes and ultimately do what's in the best interest of the city.



MJ:  Do you have sort of a working majority...?

JJ:  Yes...



MJ:  ...on the council? Or...

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JJ:  Yes I do. Yes I do, which is always essential.



MJ:  What about your family, what's your family life like?  How many

children do you have?

JJ:  I have three children;  a seventeen year old who's a senior in high

school, a thirteen year old, and a ten year old...

MJ:  Wow...

JJ:  , that's the biggest challenge trying to organize your time to

incorporate their needs, wants and desires and still meet the needs and

wants and desires of the fastest growing city in America.  My family has

been incredibly supportive,  they've worked with me, they've been involved

in every decision even when I made the decision to run again for mayor. 

The biggest difference you see I was approached 7 months ago to run for

congress.  This was a key congressional district and leading democrats in

Washington were very supportive of my campaign, but I had really made the

decision that was too much....



MJ:  For your family...

JJ:  ...to ask my children to do.



MJ:  So , once your kids are grown up, all bets are off, you may run for

other offices?

JJ:  Ah, I'll see. You know, I, I really am a believer that government

employment should not be life employment, that it was intended to attract

people to come in for a limited period of time when they still had the

energy and the creativity and the ability to see how you could conduct

municipal 

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business or state or federal business in an innovative manner.  I'm not

sure that it suits anyone to stay in public  service too long... you get

stale.  So we'll see.



MJ:  On the way , from the airport to my hotel I rode with a taxi, the taxi

driver said you're a great mayor, and I talked to reporters who you're

doing a good job... you don't have a lot of enemies in this city, why is

that?

JJ: Well you always have enemies in politics...

MJ:  You have fewer enemies in this case...

JJ:  I have fewer enemies... I think it's because  I try to keep in

perspective what my job is.  This is not about power.  It's not about being

the most powerful person in Las Vegas or Nevada.  It's about doing the

right thing for people.  And that that takes partnerships - partnerships in

the city, partnerships with the other governments, whether it be other

smaller cities in Nevada, the state, the county.  And that if you keep that

attitude that we all need to work together in order to create the city that

we all believe Las Vegas can become - the entire valley, that you leave not

only the process, but while you're in the process everyone has better

feelings.  I think I also have learned to keep my sense of humor.  If you

keep your sense of humor, there's , no limit to what you can achieve. 



MJ:  What sort of goals do you have for the city, and the future?

JJ:  Really my major goals for the next two years is aggressively

continuing our downtown redevelopment.  Las Vegas, like many cities in

America had seen a real turn-around in the downtown area, people were

leaving, older problems with crime, drugs, social problems.  We put

together the "Fremont 

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Street Experience" which is really the projects that I spoke of earlier

that was the critical mass to spur downtown redevelopment.  It's been

remarkably successful.  We took a street where, that was virtually deserted

and now on any given day you find 20 to 25 thousand people on the street

when 5 years ago we didn't have private sector willing to invest a dollar

in downtown.  Today, just in non-gaming projects, we have almost 600

million dollars of projects on the books if you bring in gaming, over a

million, I see downtown redevelopment as the key to the future.  Really

creating a strip that's a continuum, you don't have a south strip and old

downtown, and then we have 200 acres directly adjacent to downtown Las

Vegas that I think gives me the opportunity  to build a real downtown Las

Vegas for the people who live here with theater, retail, commercial,

performing arts centers, possibly a sports stadium.  It's the one area

that's equidistant from all centers of the valley, and the people here need

and want a downtown.  Not only downtown redevelopment, but insuring that

our neighborhoods have the quality of life that the people who move here

feel safe, protected, have the amenities, the recreation, the programs,

that make them want to stay and raise their families in Las Vegas.  I've

had a tremendous opportunity and luckily have had the support to make a lot

of those visions a reality.



MJ:  Will you have a sports team some day?

JJ:  I think we will.  I think the old prohibitions on " you can't have

sports team in Las Vegas" because of the gambling....you know, gaming is

really nationwide now, as well as world wide, and I think you find many of

the major cities that have sports teams have gambling as well.  And the...

Las Vegas, as I said, today isn't just about gambling, it's about

entertainment.  No 

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one does entertainment better than Las Vegas and I think if you look at

professional sports, that's what they've become, entertainment.



MJ:  Does Las Vegas have any, , sister cities?

JJ:  Yes we do. , An San, Korea is our one very active sister city,

although in the last 15 months we've put together an aggressive sister city

foundation that is publicly funded where we're looking for cities who are

very much compatible with Las Vegas to do both cultural exchange as well as

well established sister-city relationships.  Right now we have letters of

intent with Moscow,  I've looked at cities in Japan because I believe that

as we work to aggressively diversify the economic base and look for foreign

investment, if you haven't established a cultural knowledge and exchange,

it's very difficult to take the next step.  And I think too often, people

try to do business before they understand each other.  So we see the sister

city program as really augmenting and helping promote that exchange of

business and ideas.



MJ:  Do you have any council men or women who are philosophically opposed

to gaming or gambling?

JJ: No.



MJ:  Can you survive in this city as a politician if you were?

JJ: No.  I think that what you're seeing is a move towards great support of

gaming in resort districts.  You have to recognize that gaming is still the

single largest employer and much of the quality of life... the low tax

environment, the low cost of both doing business as a corporation no

inheritance tax, no state income tax, is largely made possible from the

revenues 

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generated by the gaming industry.  On the other hand, people are very

aggressively taking a strong stance against gaming continuing to expand

into neighborhoods.  We recognize that the neighborhoods, people want to go

home from work and not be totally surrounded by the same environment you

find on the Las Vegas strip, so I think you'll see in the next two to five

years much stronger laws prohibiting gaming in neighborhood areas.



MJ:  So there's no inheritance tax, no state tax?

JJ:  No. No state tax, no inheritance tax, one of the lowest corporate

taxes in the country there's also very, very low property taxes, probably

about the same level of California.  You really, you've got a seven percent

sales tax, and the gaming tax, so moving to Las Vegas that's why you see so

many seniors, they can come from another part of the country, buy a house,

put the money that they save from the house they sold elsewhere and the

money they saved on the cost of housing in Las Vegas, and go to the casinos

and eat at buffets probably for less money than they could go to the

supermarket.



MJ:  Do you have celebrities who relocate in order to... 

JJ:  Quite a number.

MJ:  ...get the lower income tax rate?

JJ:  You know, certainly you find you've got a lot performers, 

entertainers who actually have their residences in Las Vegas because of the

tax advantage.  I think that's one of our more successful marketing tools

in attracting new business.  That if they open their corporate headquarters

in Las Vegas, there's some very attractive tax benefits to be collected.

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MJ:  How is the rail project coming along and when will that be finished?

JJ:  The rail project being the Monorail?



MJ:  Yeah.

JJ:  Right now we're in the midst of a major investment study that was a

real partnership with the different cities and counties and the valley and

gaming and business.  We have determined what route we can all agree on

which basically would take a Maglev system from the airport probably behind

the casinos on the east side of the strip, along that same route is the

connection between MGM and Balley's, connect with the convention center,

come down main street to downtown Las Vegas, and then continue back down

probably industrial on its way back to the airport.  We'd really look to

put some public off load stations so that people coming in to work in the

resort areas could park, pick up their monorail system, so it would have a

public benefit as well.  The big question as in any area will be how this

project is financed.  Right now we, we recognize that it must be a

public-private partnership, certainly the public entities can participate. 

We don't expect tremendous participation on the part of the federal

government because they've moved away from huge monetary support of these

kinds of projects.  But we believe in this instance that the private sector

will show a willingness to pay for their legs as you connect the different

resort properties, because it's a mutually beneficial system.  We can't

widen the Las Vegas Strip.  We need to go up.



MJ:  What about the Las Vegas/Los Angeles....

JJ:  That super speed, you know that  Union Pacific just discontinued

Amtrak from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.   The super speed train, I know that

they've 

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been looking at refunding the study group.  I don't have great confidence

that you'll see that in the immediate future.  It's too expensive and

there's too many other transportation priorities.  



MJ:  I have a sense from being here for a little, a little while that

there's greater cooperation from the government and the private sector here

than most other cities.  Is that pretty accurate?

JJ:  Yes.  And I think that much of that is attributable to gaming's

attitude that they recognize they're really a part of the community.  I've

really never asked the gaming industry for  any kind of support whether it

be monetarily in kind hiring considerations that they haven't been more

than willingly to come to the table with at least what I've asked for often

times more.  And I think you see that even in the other corporations in

Nevada, that they have a real thankful attitude that government has really

worked to keep the bureaucracy and the tax environment so favorable so

they're very willing to work with us on community projects and again

insuring quality of life issues in the valley.



MJ:  And you grew up in California.

JJ:  I grew up in California.



MJ:  How is life different?

JJ:  Oh, night and day.  I think in, in many ways when  I first moved to

Las Vegas I found that backward  probably is not the right term, they just

were about 15 years behind in development, that it, it... Las Vegas has

that old pioneer spirit you know, where you can come here, it's sort of a

cowboy  type of town and yet it's got an attitude of hope and

entrepreneurial spirit and, and  

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a belief that anything you can envision you can accomplish that you don't

find in other big cities.  Plus you don't have an old time cast social

system where everybody really takes people for what they are and who they

are and likes you because you're a nice person, not because of where you

come from or, or what may have.



MJ:  Would you say there's no old money in Las Vegas? Or, or...

JJ:  I would say there's no old money in Las Vegas.



MJ:  It's all new money.

JJ:  It's all new money, and, and I think that you'll find surprisingly to

many people, Las Vegas is very conservative.  That it's a very nice place

to raise a family  because you do things together as a family.  You go

bowling you go to the movies, you go hiking at Mt. Charleston, or you go

boating out at the lake.  Families have a tendency, a much greater tendency

to do things together than I've found in California where you just get on

the freeway and everybody goes there own way.  So from that standpoint, the

fact that it's a little behind is a good thing.



MJ:  Tell us about your recent trip to Japan

JJ:  It was an excellent experience, I was invited by a group, a marketing

group in Yokohama, to be the keynote speaker at  a symposium on theme parks

as resort destinations.  And so I spent 2 days in Yokohama, from there I

went to Tokyo, to Gamagori, where I had a very interesting meeting with the

mayor of Gamagori and had the ability to see some of their gambling with

boat races.  Was truly quite amazed at how much money is generated by the

gaming 

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industry in Japan.  I finished my trip in Kyoto, where I stayed at the

Tawaraya which is a traditional Japanese inn.  And it was a wonderful

experience because being in 

the summer it allowed me to bring my family with me so I was not only

introduced to the culture and business of the Japanese  people, but it

allowed me, me to allow my children to share in that experience as well.



MJ:  Did you put some money on the races there?

JJ:  I, I  put 10 dollars and I lost. I figured the next time I'd have to

go with, with the bookies. I didn't know how they rated the , you have

to... you have to bet two boats and you bet on colors, and,  seemed even

riskier to me than a slot machine.



MJ:  Thank you for joining us today.

JJ:  Real pleasure being here.



MJ:  Thank you for joining us today, Mayor Jones.

JJ:  Real pleasure, thank you for having me.