Titus’ visit should offer much-needed answers

By Bill Erin (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008 | midnight

Bill Erin

Congresswoman-elect Dina Titus is coming to Boulder City. She has stated her intention to visit the Tuesday City Council meeting. We like to think it's at least partly because of the open letter to her we wrote a few weeks ago. Or perhaps it's because I kept bugging the staff about an interview or an answer to the letter.

They finally got tired of me calling, I guess, and said Titus was coming to the meeting and I could talk to her then. And even though I didn't get a reply to the column, the visit could be good for Boulder City.

For those who may have missed the letter in the Nov. 20 issue, or forgotten about it already, I voiced the concern of many Boulder City-ites that, in her defeat of Jon Porter for the 3rd Congressional District seat, we may have lost our advocate in Washington. I detailed the problems we foresee for U.S. 93 through Boulder City once that Hoover Dam Bypass bridge opens and pours a steady stream of trucks and cars through our streets.

Titus' delay and/or reluctance to respond is understandable, given the circumstances. She has just been elected, and she has had to go to Washington for some indoctrination and preliminary work. In addition, she may not be knowledgeable about our bypass around Boulder City.

After all, her basis of operations while in the state Legislature was the Las Vegas Valley. Boulder City, in her mind, has probably been some quaint little town somewhere out in the boonies near Hoover Dam. She may not even realize that Boulder City is the growing center of solar power in Nevada — that we were raised on alternative energy from Hoover Dam while the rest of Nevada was suckling on gasoline and coal.

We're not small because there's nothing here. We're small because we want it that way. We've thrown up a legal wall, kept out the developers, including Del Webb, and stuck to our small town ways. We park our RVs, boats and pickups in the street, by gum, just like any other small town.

The only thing we've had to fight about is a golf course. So, in a way, it's been sort of good that this Hoover Dam Bypass and the impending U.S. 93 congestion has occurred. It's something around which we can unify ... maybe.

That's where Titus comes in. If our new president, Barack Obama, is true to his word, there's going to be a lot of infrastructure "stimulus" money available from Uncle Sam. We will need Titus to speak for us.

So we want to be sure she understands the problem and how it is going to affect more than just Boulder City. We want her to be in there fighting for our share of those earmarks (we don't call it pork when it favors us) for highway improvement.

When I talked to Mayor Roger Tobler about her visit, he was right on when he said, "We want to make her feel like she's welcome. If she wants to speak, we'll put an item on the agenda."

Tobler also said he would call ahead and invite her to come early and take the tour from where the new, multiple-lane bypass joins the single lane U.S. 93 near the Hacienda. Then up the grade into and through Boulder City, where we foresee more backups and congestion that will seriously impact our small town businesses and our citizens' entry, exit and crossing of 93.

You can trust Tobler to make sure she understands all of this. He's a Boulder City-ite, born and raised, and his major concern is Boulder City.

So let's welcome Titus with open arms.

Bill Erin is a Boulder City News columnist.