Neighborhood Services may become McDonald’s legacy

Erin Neff

Sunday, Sept. 19, 1999 | 1:24 a.m.

Michael McDonald's political legacy will likely have nothing to do with his "youngest ever" councilman status or his role as mayor pro tem of Las Vegas.

His hands-on brand of government is reflected by the city department he helped create six months after being elected in 1995. Neighborhood Services was created to make City Hall more responsive to residents' concerns.

Calls to the department are never handled by voice mail. Everything from tenants and federally funded development to immediate graffiti removal is handled by the 75-employee department.

"Our mandate is direct service, and Michael also believes we're here to serve people," Sharon Segerblom, the department's director, said. "People can see government is doing something for them."

Even as Neighborhood Services is viewed as the most responsive and effective city department, it also serves as something of McDonald's right arm, taking care of concerns in his ward and providing employment for some of his friends.

Complaint reports handled by the department show a disproportionate number of requests from McDonald's office.

The most recent report, dated Sept. 13, shows McDonald's staff made 169 requests that Neighborhood Services staff addressed, including graffiti, pigeons and abandoned shopping carts. Each case was handled between June 21 and Sept. 2.

By comparison, Councilman Larry Brown's staff called the department 30 times and Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald called 28 times during the same period. City Manager Virginia Valentine made three requests of the department, according to the report.

Segerblom said no one ward or council member is given priority by her department. She said the Sept. 13 report is an aberration because McDonald was conducting a "sweep" that month.

"Over the year that's not how it equals out at all," Segerblom said. "At the end of the year, the older neighborhoods probably have more CARS (Council Action Requests), but we have the same amount of staff applied to all quadrants of the city."

McDonald also attributed his greater use of Neighborhood Services to the age of his ward.

"A planned community like Summerlin won't have as much problems," McDonald said.

But Councilman Gary Reese, whose ward also contains older neighborhoods and inner-city problems, did not make any requests of Neighborhood Services, according to the Sept. 13 report.

Still Reese champions the department and McDonald's role in creating it.

"In the past programs that we had, we were hitting our heads up against the wall," Reese said. "We have brought government back to the people."

McDonald also has brought his people to the government. He has admitted asking city staff to hire two of his friends, Robert Hyde and Devin Livziey, to work in the Neighborhood Services Bel Aire outreach office.

Livziey no longer works for the city, but his appointive position was filled this past June by Nathan Taylor. Taylor worked on McDonald's re-election campaign and, sources told the Sun, McDonald helped get him the city job.

Segerblom says department and its staff make a daily difference in residents' lives.

For the fiscal year ending June 1999, the department handled 4,965 housing code violations, 412 dangerous buildings, 5,695 litter complaints, 13,505 illegal signs and 8,860 abandoned vehicles.

In addition to the response division, the department also allocated more than $6.8 million in federal funding to development projects and has an 11-page report detailing other significant accomplishments.

"We have an incredible amount of contact with citizens," Segerblom said.

That contact is what makes the job beneficial to people like Erik King, who supervises the housing rehabilitation efforts the department conducts.

"I get to help a lot of people who are less fortunate," said King, a 13-year city employee. "Most of the people we help are elderly folks or people on a fixed income, and you can really see the difference you make."

On Wednesday Neighborhood Services awarded $75,000 in matching grants to 15 neighborhood associations. The money will be used for everything from gardens to computer equipment to Spanish-language translation.

Trina Robinson, a management analyst in the department, has created a Youth Neighborhood Partnership Program to "help the youth become civic-oriented," she said.

"Johnny's not going to spray-paint his neighborhood if he's out trying to make it better," Robinson said.

The department's efforts on a host of issues show how it has become the most utilized of city divisions.

"In a bureaucracy, this is as good as it gets," Segerblom said. "Every day I think we make life better for somebody. The council allows us to do this."