North Las Vegas a study in contrasts

Lisa Snedeker

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 11:19 a.m.

There are two cities in North Las Vegas.

There is the area in and around downtown where older neighborhoods have fallen victim to what residents attribute to a lack of attention from city officials resulting in little code enforcement and lots of crime.

Then there is the fast-growing northwest area that is home to the city's first Wal-Mart and Applebee's restaurant and residential developments that seem to sprout up overnight.

Dividing the communities are railroad tracks and a number of industrial parks. Also dividing neighborhoods is a perceived attitude that the City Council is only concerned about the city's growth.

There is no arguing that the city is growing -- it has more than doubled in population over the past decade. State estimates show the city of more than 107,000 is growing at a rate of almost 15 percent annually, or by about 1,500 residents a month.

One resident, Dorothy Walker, complained to council members at a recent meeting about the lack of code enforcement in her neighborhood.

She and other residents also are not pleased by the recent money spent on remodeling the City Council chambers. They say the approximately $85,000 used for new chairs, televisions, paint and carpeting would have been better spent on just about anything else the city needs from parks and recreation to police officers to road improvements.

The fact that 13 candidates ran for two open City Council seats in the May 4 primary is reflective of the city's divisiveness.

Longtime Councilman William Robinson, first-term Councilwoman Paula Brown, Planning Commissioner Shari Buck, and a Neiman Marcus department manager, Marcia Blake, are on the June 8 ballot for the two open, four-year council seats.

The incumbents point to the recent formation of the downtown redevelopment area by the City Council -- which doubles as the city's redevelopment agency -- as just one of the measures taken to improve residents' quality of life in the older neighborhoods.

Robinson said he doesn't want to see the city divided, period.

"I want the older areas of North Las Vegas as well as the newer sections to be one cohesive city," he said.

Robinson, 59, is running for a fifth term.

"We have got to give a lot of attention to the older part of the city through redevelopment and code enforcement," he said. "We need to get the older part of town and the newer part working together in a harmonious way."

One way to revitalize the older areas is to bring in new establishments such as ones being built near the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Craig Road, Robinson said.

"Most of our growth has been homes," he said. "We've got to have more clean (industry) jobs and more facilities in the northwest. We need several nice restaurants, not bars with restaurants."

Despite the criticisms, Brown, 52, who replaced Mary Kincaid when she was elected to the County Commission, justifies the expense of remodeling the council chambers by saying there were two issues that needed to be addressed: acoustics and image.

"It became horrible for the audience and us to hear what they were saying," she said.

The remodel is part of the revitalization of the mature area, Brown said.

"We've set aside $1 million in redevelopment funds so folks that want to improve their homes can get a loan at a lower interest rate," she said.

Brown pointed to the recent improvements along Lake Mead Boulevard, including burying the utilities and the new landscaping.

"That was a huge effort on the city's part," she said, adding that the two major shopping centers in the area followed up with remodeling projects. "It (redevelopment) almost becomes infectious."

In another effort to help clean up the mature areas, the city also has stepped up its code enforcement by forming its own division, Brown said.

Like Robinson, Brown is an advocate of maintaining North Las Vegas as a whole. As the growth in the northwest continues to spread south, Brown said she sees the contrasting areas blending into one community.

One of her suggestions includes imposing fees on builders to pay for such amenities as parks and recreation.

Buck, 38, a lifelong resident and substitute teacher, says the city needs to be more proactive when it comes to road improvements and traffic.

"There are some desperately needed traffic lights," she said. "I wish roads like Craig had better planning. We need to get ahead of the game instead of waiting to play catch up."

That means adding police officers, firefighters and substations, Buck said, adding that response times can take as long as 20 minutes in the northwest.

In her role as a planning commissioner for the past year, Buck said she has been helping create design standards to give builders some guidelines.

The Planning Commission also has been working on establishing standards for landscaping and open space.

"One of the problems I see in the past is that city officials have allowed multi-family residences in the middle of single-family residences," Buck said. "As a planning commissioner, I always fight against them. There are proper places for apartments, but not in some single-family development."

Buck also said she would like to see developers move beyond building starter homes.

"I would like to see bigger homes that families can move up into, rather than leaving North Las Vegas," she said.

Buck agrees that the city needs more economic diversification.

"Sometimes I look at Henderson and see that it got a new vitamin plant and I think, 'Why not here?' "

Because she grew up in the first established area of the city, Buck said she can act as the bridge between the older parts of the city and the newer area where she now lives.

"I know what it was like and I have a vision of it being that again," she said, referring to the mature area. "It was probably one of the best places to grow up. Neighbors knew neighbors. Families flew kites on the Fourth of July and trick or treated together on Halloween. I think you have to understand the history and past in order to give it the attention it needs."

Like Buck, Blake said she would like to see a heightened sense of community.

"We don't have a sense of community," she said. "The city doesn't provide Fourth of July celebrations. They don't do things to meet and mingle and bond and build relationships."

One reason is the lack of parks and recreation facilities, said Blake, 26.

"Pat answers don't satisfy me as a citizen," Blake said. "The money (for parks and recreation) has to be found. It's not an option anymore.

"Some of the (parks) equipment has been there 18 or 19 years and it's not safe for kids," she said, adding there also is a lack of ball and soccer fields.

Craig Road is another huge issue, according to Blake.

"You take your life in your hands because it's not marked and it goes from two lanes to five lanes," she said. "There needs to be money for major thoroughfares and to maintain those major roads before someone gets killed."

Blake agrees with her opponents that the mature areas also deserve attention.

"They've been here the longest and paid the most taxes," she said. "The new growth is going to pay for itself in the northwest. The mature part of town doesn't have that option so it has to be the responsibility of the city ... The northwest is new, exciting and growing. Businesses need to be given the opportunity to go into the mature part."

To encourage code enforcement, Blake would like to get citizens involved in neighborhood clean-up days.

"As we get to know each other, the neighborhood gets to be safer," she said. "The neighborhood is going to take ownership. If you give them a sense of community they will run with it, that's why neighborhood watch (programs) works. It gives incentive and creates a chain reaction."