Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 | 11:09 a.m. - Two new members of the state Gaming Control Board made their first deliberations today in a meeting with little controversy and the three-member regulatory board had its first session in more than a decade under a new chairman. Two new members of the state Gaming Control Board made their first deliberations today in a meeting with little controversy and the three-member regulatory board had its first session in more than a decade under a new chairman. A.G. Burnett and Shawn Reid, Northern Nevada residents who formerly held administrative positions with the Control Board, made their first votes in a meeting conducted in Las Vegas by Chairman Mark Lipparelli, who has been on the board for two years. Burnett and Reid replace former Chairman Dennis Neilander, who chose not to seek reappointment, and member Randall Sayre, who completed a four-year term and wasn’t brought back. Lipparelli, the lone holdover, was appointed chairman last month in a joint announcement from the transition team of former Gov. Jim Gibbons and Gov. Brian Sandoval. By law, Gibbons was required to appoint new members by Dec. 31, days before Sandoval took office. Sandoval has pledged to reappoint Burnett and Reid when those terms expire at the end of January. Reid, a UNR graduate, joined the Gaming Control Board in 1990 and eventually was promoted to chief of the Control Board’s Investigations Division. Burnett, also a UNR grad, received a juris doctorate from Gonzaga University. He formerly was an associate of the law firm of Robison, Belaustegui, Sharp & Low and worked as a senior deputy attorney general in the Nevada Attorney General’s Gaming Division. From there, he went to the Control Board, where he was deputy chief of the Corporate Securities Division. As chairman of the board, Lipparelli will present the Control Board’s budget to the Legislature. He said he would present a budget with an unspecified number of fewer employees and lower expenses in accordance with Sandoval’s budget directives. “We’ve always been very conservative so we’ll have to think creatively like every other state agency,” he said. At the beginning of the meeting, Lipparelli introduced Burnett and Reid to a small gathering in attendance. “I’m looking forward to having them on the team,” Lipparelli said in opening remarks at today’s meeting. He also applauded the work of Neilander and Sayre on the board. “They dedicated a long number of years to the state,” Lipparelli said. “We occasionally disagreed on things, but we disagreed in a respectful way.” There was little disagreement in today’s meeting. The first matter on the agenda eventually was deferred to the board’s February meeting in Carson City. A former manager at a West Wendover casino seeking to withdraw his application failed to show up at the meeting, telling board staff he couldn’t afford to make the trip to Las Vegas. The board agreed to allow him the chance to make his case next month. The new board’s first vote was unanimous, agreeing to allow the Longstreet Inn and Casino in Amargosa to modify the conditions of its license. Las Vegas car dealership executive Jim Marsh, owner of the Longstreet, told regulators that he wanted to take a greater role in the management of the property rather than pay a key employee. Marsh said his alternative was to close the Longstreet, a tiny property near Death Valley. Marsh said after a profitable October and November, he is optimistic with good spring crowds coming to see the floral blooms in the area after heavy winter rains. He also said if the Solar Millennium power generation project is built nearby, business should improve |