NAACP president hopes for a deal before eviction

Cathy Scott

Thursday, Dec. 18, 1997 | 11:13 a.m.

An eviction notice from Operation Life for the NAACP at its West Las Vegas quarters may end up being moot before it lands on a Justice Court docket.

The Rev. James Rogers, president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he is hopeful he can negotiate with David Phillips, attorney for Operation Life, which has been inactive as a nonprofit for at least seven years.

"I talked to Dave (Phillips) yesterday," Rogers said Wednesday. "He said he has paid the constable to serve an official notice of eviction."

Rogers said he plans to respond to the notice in Justice Court, which is where an eviction must be processed, and ask for a hearing.

In the meantime, Rogers noted, "There are some other issues here."

Those include the fact that Operation Life, which once had its offices in the 600 W. Owens Ave. property near D Street, moved out of the building at least 7 1/2 years ago.

By its own bylaws, once it stopped using the building for the purpose of the nonprofit agency, which was set up in 1972 to help needy women, it must deed over the property to another nonprofit. The building was built in 1972 with a grant from the Max Fleishman Foundation at UNLV to house Operation Life.

Rogers said he's hopeful "an arrangement can be negotiated."

Rogers said he approached Phillips 2 1/2 years ago to obtain the property. The NAACP then was located in the 1100 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard.

"I had just been elected (as president of the branch), and there was a transition," he said. "After I found out the building was vacant for several years, I contacted Dave Phillips. The NAACP had been subleasing a building and we had to move.

"I said, 'Why don't you just let us take over the building?' He told me it would be OK if the NAACP would give (Operation Life) $450,000."

That, he said, was out of the question for the branch. Instead, he negotiated the initial rent of $1,200 be decreased to $500 a month, he said.

"I believe in negotiation," Rogers said. "I wanted to be fair."

Then a year ago, Rogers approached the city for a Community Development Block Grant to renovate the building, which had a leaky roof and was in disrepair.

But once the city's Neighborhood Services Division learned that Operation Life as a nonprofit was defunct, the city couldn't move on the CDBG federal grant application until Operation Life turned over the property to another nonprofit group, said Terry Stanfield, a manager with the Neighborhood Services Division.

The plan, Rogers said, was to have not only the NAACP, but possibly the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee and other nonprofits, move into the building and form a group of committees in a center for the community.

He's hopeful, with Davis considering giving the building to the NAACP, that it may still happen one day.

"I certainly hope it will happen," he said. "I would like to see the community continue to benefit from the property."

Phillips did not return a call for comment, although sources said he is still considering giving the building to the NAACP.