Mohave Daily News: Top Story

LAUGHLIN - The second bridge controversy lives on as the Laughlin Town Community Development Committee will meet at 1:30 p.m. PST today to act on what local residents consider a hit job on the project by a television network commentator.

Town Manager Jackie Brady has led the detailed and fierce responses to Sean Hannity's Jan. 7 broadcast over the Fox News network in which he attacked claims Laughlin and Bullhead City need a second bridge over the Colorado River.

In a series of replies the town manager concluded, “The story's flawed reporting included at least five factual errors, misleading statements and erroneous conclusions.”

Brady said, “... about a half-dozen separate reports show that we need another bridge and more recently, and in fact, three more bridges.”

She added that sometimes the more than 41,000 vehicles which cross the bridge on the twin communities' north side have to wait 90 minutes. A more recent study by the Nevada Transportation Department showed some 55,000 vehicles a day.

She said Hannity misled viewers by claiming proponents used the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a pretext to secure support for the new bridge. “The fact is, a second bridge has been needed for the last 15 years, and the (post Sept. 11, 2001) detouring of at least 2,000 trucks a day across the one Laughlin Bridge simply increased the need for another bridge,” she said.

The commentator, she said, claimed a second bridge, a private one, already was in use. Developer David Lords told the Colorado River Women's Club last Thursday about his plans to build a road connecting the Bullhead Parkway to Arizona Highway 95 near the Bullhead Community Park and then to bridge the river without piers in the water, thus eliminating many regulatory agencies.

Brady pointed out that Grand Junction, Colo., has seven bridges. Its metro population is not even twice that of the Tri-State communities. Closer to home, Farmington, N.M., with a metro population of about 75,000 people, has six bridges over two rivers.

The town manager noted Hannity's crews filmed the Laughlin Bridge during a low-traffic period, then he called it the busiest time of the year. “Having little traffic on and around the Laughlin Bridge is an exception and not the rule. In fact about 97 percent of the 4 million annual visitors to Laughlin drive in,” she explained.

Most critically, Brady said, is that the television piece may have endangered support in Congress for more money to build the second crossing “... by focusing and reporting supposition rather than fact.”

The public is invited to attend the session in the meeting rooms of the Clark County Regional Government Center at 101 Civic Way.

Also on the agenda for action will be a review, then a recommendation to the Laughlin Town Advisory Board, to establish a cemetery district for the community.

In addition, the committee's members will hear a progress report about a military veterans museum to be located in the Pioneer Hotel-Casino.