Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 3

NEVADA FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2007 RENO 3A Heller votes against veto override of CHIP bill Other representatives of state delegation support program -i bring up the bill again to win political points against congressional Republicans and the White House. Polls show most Americans support the Democratic stance. Democrats said their plan would extend insurance coverage to 10 million children whose parents earn too much money to be eligible for Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor and disabled, but not enough to afford private coverage. Bush said the Democratic plan would be too expensive and push people who can afford private insurance onto the government rolls. Gannett News Service reporter Ana Radelat contributed to this They said legislation should ensure that only children with no private insurance are covered and that more efforts be made to prevent Social Security fraud.

The 273-156 vote was not the two-thirds majority, 286, required to pass the legislation despite Bush's objection. Since the House failed, the Senate will not vote. The Democratic plan to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, would have cost about $60 billion over five years, about $35 billion more than current funding. Most of that increase would have been financed by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 a pack. Democrats have vowed to voted for the override.

Heller said before the vote that he continues to oppose the legislation because it would allow illegal immigrants to participate in the program, a charge prominent Republicans say is misleading. "1 do support the program," he said, adding he has voted to continue funding the program while lawmakers come up with a compromise bill. Heller says illegal immigrants would be covered under the bill because they could use fake Social Security numbers to obtain coverage. Heller was among 38 House Republicans who on Thursday sent a letter to Bush indicating willingness to compromise with Democrats on new legislation. BY DIANA MARRERO dmarrerogns.gannett.news WASHINGTON The House fell 13 votes short Thursday of overriding President Bush's veto of a bill that would have expanded a government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.

U.S. Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, was alone among Nevada's three House members in sustaining Bush's veto. Reps. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, and Shelley Berkley, D-as Vegas, JUL fLJ ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE U.S.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, speaks to the state Legislature in 2007 in Carson City. Heller was alone among Nevada's three House members in sustaining President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill. cary Closet or Garage? JT: 'u 1 w- 5S I Hnrrf i AL00 Arizona nian buys piece of Las Vegas Strip for $47 million BY RYAN NAKASH1MA ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS An Arizona businessman who prefers to fly below the radar has bought a hefty piece of the Las Vegas Strip, purchasing the former Holy Cow Casino, Cafe and Brewery site, once destined to be an Ivana Trump condo tower, for $47 million. The purchase of the 0.58-acre site, on the northeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, was completed in September, according to Clark County land tecords.

The plot is situated diagonally across from a multibillion-dollar resort planned by MGM Mirage Kerzner International Holdings Ltd. and Dubai World, and north of the Sahara hotel-casino. It's zoned to permit developers to apply for a casino license. The buyer, Steven Johnson, a 58-year-old businessman who has a residence in the upscale Desert Mountain-Renegade Golf Course community in Scottsdale, told the Associated Press he's not sure what he intends to do with it. "I haven't finalized my plans yet," Johnson said.

"I thought it was a good piece of property. At the moment, there's really not much to say." Johnson, a real estate dealer who purchased the plot through his company Aspen Highlands Holdings LLC, has made several big transactions in Las Vegas, and said he's been buying and selling plots in the city for about 20 years. Many of them were site later turned into Walgreens drug stores, including one on the Las Vegas Strip near the MGM Grand hotel-casino and another at the corner of Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards. Both deals were made with a partner, James Peterson of Albuquerque, N.M. In April 2003, the partners also paid the LeWinter family $32.5 million for the former Rosewood Grille on the Strip, a restaurant that had been there since the 1950s.

The 0.64-acre parcel, between the Venetian and the under-construction Palazzo casino-resort, is being rebuilt to become another Walgreens. Johnson and Peterson leased the site to Walgreen as well as six floors of retail space above it to Venetian owner Las Vegas Sands which also bought the airspace above that for a future high-rise condominium, for undisclosed terms. The price per acre of the plot, at more than $50 million, well exceeds what was considered to be a high-water mark set in May when Elad Group agreed to pay 1 .2 billion to New Frontier hotelasino owner Phil Ruffin for a plot on the Strip at around $35 million per acre. Alan LeWinter, the president of the company that owned the Rosewood Grille, now displaced farther south on the Strip, confirmed the low-key demeanor of a man who could one day be among the Strip's casino mafe nates. i mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mi mm i m.

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