Community is his No. 1 priority

Monday, Feb. 5, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons last week tapped Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly to replace the retiring Yvonne Atkinson Gates on the Clark County Commission.

The appointment, to take effect next month, is another step up on an improbable journey for a man who grew up on the same streets of West Las Vegas that he now serves as a councilman and will continue to represent as a county commissioner.

Weekly graduated from Western High School and attended Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he earned a bachelor's degree in communication, before returning to Las Vegas to pursue careers in radio broadcasting and communication.

His career path shifted to the political arena when he took a job in the city's Neighborhood Services Department and later served as ward liaison for Councilman Gary Reese.

He was appointed to council in 1999 to serve one of two newly created wards, and won reelection to Ward 5 in 2001.

Weekly often wears his emotions on his sleeve, as during a recent council meeting when he angrily told a developer who has failed to bring a grocery store to West Las Vegas that he was "tired of playing with them."

Last week he sat down to discuss his legacy on the council, what he would like to see from his successor and his goals as a county commissioner and beyond.

My biggest accomplishment is just getting here. I would have never dreamed in a million years, when I was growing up as a kid in West Las Vegas that I would be a city councilman.

What are the tangible things that you can look at and say, "Ward 5 is better off because I was here"?

Learning and understanding economic development is a huge learning curve for me. What I tried to do is focus on the urban core and its infrastructure. I worked hard to go in and light up dark areas, to clean up unpaved roads, to work on new road projects, better the drainage systems in a lot of the areas and really expand on the neighborhood cleanup effort experiences I had prior to being a councilman and a liaison.

And then I eventually started venturing off into the economic aspects of this job and I just felt like in the urban core there were a lot of bad perceptions about (Ward 5) and once we really started cleaning and polishing up the place people started looking at it in a totally different light.

What would you look for in a successor?

Gotta have compassion. You can't allow anyone to take your compassion and your emotion and sensitivity away, because there is so much need throughout this ward. If you don't have those elements, my successor would not make a great representative for this area.

I don't proclaim to have been the best councilman in the world. I've stumbled along the way and made some bad choices, but I've always held every project close to my heart. I'm looking for someone who can be relentless in sharing the vision of revitalizing West Las Vegas, East Las Vegas and the downtown area.

Do you think it should be a minority?

I like the idea of minority representation. Minority representation across the board is necessary. When you look at the Hispanic population, the Hispanics should have representation, African-Americans need representation, the Asian community needs to be represented. But if in fact we don't have a representative that reflects the community, you have to be open-minded to understand their needs and be willing to work with their communities, to help in their quality of life and their pursuits to make their neighborhoods a success.

You participated in a lot of community-oriented activities as Ward 5 councilman - for example, teen council and holiday food giveaways. How big of a priority should that be for your successor, in light of the number of low-income residents there?

It's a must and that's why I say it's going to have to be someone who's going to get out there and grind. It seems like a thankless job, but there's so many people who appreciate you at the end of the day and that's a gratifying feeling.

If they're coming in here because they can go to grand openings and ribbon-cuttings and walk on red carpets with Oscar Goodman, that's not what this is all about. That's a very, very small percentage of what this job does.

Any regrets on your City Council tenure?

Yeah, but I'm working on it. What rests heavy on my heart is I really would have loved to secure this grocery store (for West Las Vegas). We're so, so close but with all the studies and things that business folks have to do ... I would have loved to have that finalized. That was major to me ... Other than that, I'm OK. I did my best and gave it 100 percent.

How influential have people like Gary Reese and Mayor Goodman been in your development as a politician?

Oh, man, a lot. This is bittersweet. Wolfson, Ross and Lois Tarkanian, I have the utmost respect for all three. They're fairly new council colleagues. Larry Brown, Oscar Goodman and Mayor Pro-Tem Reese are the three remaining council members who gave me this opportunity, they voted for me to be a councilman. Not that I owe them anything, but I am very grateful to have even been in their presence. They're just some stand-up guys. I will forever cherish their friendship and their brotherly love. There's another side to Oscar Goodman that a lot of people don't know. He and I will be friends forever.

Any other influences?

Bob Bailey (former Moulin Rouge performer and longtime Las Vegas businessman and civic leader), he's been my icon, dude, I adore him. I have another person that I think the world of, but we'll leave him out. He's a former elected official and he catapulted me into this arena.

What will your goals be as a county commissioner?

I want to first of all, work to complete the projects that Commissioner Gates has started. She has one in the city of Las Vegas, the Doc Pearson Community Center, which I think is phenomenal, and she has a project in North Las Vegas, a proposed tennis facility and I'm going to follow up on that. Then my personal goals, I want to dive into the social services that they have. I want to get involved with the city to hammer out some economic development projects. I want to work closely with the city to really bring some resources to the neighborhood and try to help take it to another level.

You often hear it said that while the mayor gets the headlines, the county commission has the real power in this community. By being on the commission, will you be better positioned and have stronger tools at your disposal to address some of your priorities?

Power, I'm afraid of that word. We have to be careful of how we use that word, power, because it can be positive and it can be negative.

I look at it as increased resources to be able to expound on things I like to do, and you know I love outreach. I love it. I think it will allow me to go out and better access neighborhoods to better empower communities.

On council, you were the only African-American. Now the same will be true on the commission. How much more responsibility does that add?

It's a huge responsibility and I humbly and sincerely and gratefully accept the challenge. I'm just looking forward to jumping in with two feet and trying to do the best I can. I won't make any special promises like I'm going to go and change the world. I'm going to give it my best and when it's all said and done if that's not good enough then, hey, the voters will let me know that.

You are still a young man, especially in political terms. Do you have any political aspirations beyond the commission?

The buck stops here with me in politics. I'm really not interested in pursuing anything that's not here. I don't want to go out of state. I want to do a full term on the County Commission, I really do. How long do I want to stay? I don't think long.

I want to serve and try to do my part. But eventually I want to be in school, I want to pursue my master's degree. Eventually I want to end up teaching at a university. That's what I want to be, man.

I love our congressmen and women, I love our senators and have great relationships with each one of them. The governor, I just met him and he's a great guy. All of our state representatives, I tip my hat to them for taking away time from their families to go and serve. But I'm just not interested in that. I believe politically, I'd like for this to be my final destination.

I love education, I support teachers 100 percent and teaching would just be the coolest job. Professor Weekly, it just has a ring to it. Commissioner sounds great, councilman sounds great, but professor sounds wonderful.

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