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Blue Diamond Blues

Did the election throw a plot twist in to the long saga of Jim Rhodes' attempt to build a city on a hill near Red Rock?

It’s been more than two years since a developer related to Jim Rhodes proposed its most recent plan to erect a huge housing development on top of Blue Diamond Hill, cheesing off seemingly everyone who loves to recreate in Red Rock. The organized opposition, Save Red Rock, gathered tens of thousands of petition signatures and raised tens of thousands of dollars, enough support to put Gypsum Resources on the defensive and keep the project at bay. Clark County, meanwhile, appeared to take the developer’s side, suing the nonprofit to get out of the way and let the process go forward. Since then, the fight has mostly languished in court, but in November that all changed — and in an election year, it got political. Here’s what happened, and what’s next.

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Desert Companion welcomed Heidi Kyser as staff writer in January 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to senior writer and producer, working for both DC and KNPR's State of Nevada. She produced KNPR’s first podcast, the Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winning Native Nevada, in 2020. The following year, she returned her focus full-time to Desert Companion, becoming Deputy Editor, which meant she was next in line to take over when longtime editor Andrew Kiraly left in July 2022. In 2024, Interim CEO Favian Perez promoted Heidi to managing editor, charged with integrating the Desert Companion and State of Nevada newsroom operations.