LAS VEGAS CITY HALL:

The fight over the closing of F Street

In West Las Vegas, memories of a historical racial divide loom over the city’s desire to redevelop its downtown

Leila Navidi

Saul Willis stands on the portion of F Street near his home at McWilliams Avenue that was closed in September to make way for the Interstate 15 widening project.

By Sam Skolnik (contact)

Sunday, June 28, 2009 | 2 a.m.

F Street

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Chris Morris

F Street Fiasco (6-10-2009)
Protesters march against closure of F Street (4-18-2009)
Roadwork works up West Las Vegans (12-1-2008)

F Street Lawsuit/Indymac Lawsuit

Residents fight for F Street reopening

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F Street March

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Las Vegans know how the controversy over the closure of F Street was resolved: The Legislature ordered the city and state to devise a plan to reopen the street and to pay for it.

More instructive for a city hoping to avoid similar gaffes in the future may be looking at how the decision to close the street in the first place caught residents off guard, opened old wounds and will end up costing taxpayers $40 million to $70 million.

These are millions the recession-racked governments say they don’t have and could have saved had more residents been aware of the plan. The proposal might have been stopped then.

Instead, advocates had to march, hire a lawyer and lobby lawmakers to force the reopening of F Street, after the fact.

“I feel that all the hard work and all the letters from the community were truly being heard,” said Trish Geran, a writer and activist behind the group Stop the Closure of F Street.

The group said last year’s closure — near where the road passed beneath Interstate 15 — shut off residents of historically black West Las Vegas from the burgeoning, $6 billion Symphony Park, perpetuating a decades-long pattern of cutting off the neighborhood from the rest of the city.

The Nevada Transportation Department has said its initial plan didn’t call for the closure of F Street, but city officials requested it so the street wouldn’t be inundated with potentially dangerous “cut-through” traffic.

Others, however, have alleged ulterior motives, citing the city’s historical mistreatment of West Las Vegas and the street’s link to the city’s most prized development.

Regardless of the motive, the closure and successful effort sponsored by state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford to reopen the street leave the city and state on the hook for a lot of money.

The city’s Redevelopment Agency will have to pay $2.5 million to design a construction plan. The city will pay another $20 million, raised from property taxes beginning in 2011.

The Transportation Department will be responsible for the rest, currently estimated to be from $20 million to $50 million.

“I’d rather take the $20 million ... and build a wonderful new community center, a new library, a new art museum, put it into the old West Side school there,” Mayor Oscar Goodman said. “But Sen. Horsford apparently wants to hole-poke through a $70 million hole.”

•••

Among the lingering questions are how the decision to close F Street was made in the first place, and how the community was told.

Different parties have differing recollections — but a paper trail dates to 2004.

The Transportation Department began the federal environmental impact process necessary for the I-15 widening that autumn, according to department Director Susan Martinovich. At that time, NDOT’s plan was to keep F Street open, she said.

But in mid-2005, Martinovich said, city officials told the department it needed to close F Street, saying they were prepared to change the city’s master plan of streets and highways to include the closure.

At a Las Vegas Planning Commission meeting on Dec. 15, 2005, the commission approved the closure and several other street modifications to accommodate the $240 million widening of I-15. But according to the minutes of that meeting, there is no direct mention that F Street would close.

The following month, the Las Vegas City Council formalized its changes to the master plan. Again, according to minutes, there was no mention of F Street’s closure.

The first time the council gave some form of public notice was on Aug. 2, 2006. During that council meeting, a Transportation Department official gave a nine-page PowerPoint presentation on the I-15 project.

The seventh slide, an overhead view of the area, points to the corner of F Street and McWilliams Avenue with a block of text that reads “F St Ends.” The slide also shows the planned connector between D Street and F Street south of I-15 that will allow traffic coming north on F Street to be diverted. (South of Bonanza Road the street was renamed City Parkway.)

While the project was being developed, Lawrence Weekly — the councilman in Ward 5, where that portion of F Street is located — said he had no idea the street was to be closed. He acknowledged the closure may have been noted on a PowerPoint slide and that he may have missed it. But he’s positive there was never any discussion.

“I would have brought this issue up at community meetings, to be sure,” Weekly said. “I remember when West Las Vegas had to protest to keep F Street open in the first place. So why wouldn’t I want to keep it open if I had known about it this time?”

Weekly was referring to 1968, when the city tried to wall off West Las Vegas from much of the rest of Las Vegas by closing D, F and H streets. More than 300 neighborhood residents marched on City Hall, and officials reversed course.

Now a Clark County commissioner, Weekly said he was “thrown for a loop” when he first was told the news about F Street by his interim council successor, Brenda Williams.

Ward 5’s current councilman, Ricki Barlow, could not be reached for comment for this story. Barlow held a community meeting about the topic soon after the issue exploded in September. More recently, he testified in favor of Horsford’s legislation to open F Street.

From 2004 to 2007, the Transportation Department held three public meetings to discuss the I-15 project. It is unclear whether F Street’s closure was discussed. It wasn’t mentioned on the notices for the first two meetings, in November 2004 and July 2005. The notice for the third meeting, in June 2006, mentioned “a new connection road linking D Street and F Street between I-15 and Bonanza Road” — but nothing directly on F Street’s closure.

A department mailer sent in February 2006 to nearby residents includes the same PowerPoint graphic showing the F Street closure. It also talks about the connector between D and F streets.

“The connector road, and future City of Las Vegas improvements to F Street to the south, will also improve access for increased traffic generated by the World Market Center, Las Vegas Premium Outlet expansion, and the 61-acre ‘Union Park’ Master Plan,” the mailer said.

The mailer, however, was sent only to homes within 400 feet of the site — a total of four residents, Geran said.

The result, she said, was that virtually no one in the community knew about the closure until it happened. “There are people who have knowledge of every single thing in the community that’s going on — and even they didn’t know about it,” Geran said.

One man who might have expected to receive notice, Saul Willis, who lives on the corner of F and McWilliams, said he learned about the closure the day the earth-moving vehicles showed up.

“It took me by total surprise,” said Willis, who has lived in his home for more than a dozen years and runs a small auto repair shop in his garage. “They should have knocked on my door and warned me. It’s had a total effect on my whole life, not just my business.”

Martinovich said not only is her agency blameless, but it’s unfairly stuck with most of the cost of the fix, a fix that will hurt the department’s ability to complete other projects.

“The money is finite,” she said. “Without new money, something isn’t getting done.”

Still, she said in retrospect the department wouldn’t handle it any differently.

“We followed all the processes that we needed to follow,” Martinovich said. “The project, the whole I-15 project, there were public hearings and for the modifying of the (city’s) master plan. Both the city and the state acted in good faith.”

•••

It may take years for F Street to reopen. The I-15 widening project must first be completed, as well as environmental and design studies and a Regional Transportation Commission planning process. It could be as long as a decade before F Street — most likely in the form of a tunnel under I-15 — is reopened.

The reason for the high costs, according to department officials, is that the widening of I-15 lowered the freeway. A reopened F Street would therefore have to be lowered and four structures — two I-15 bridges and two interchange ramps — modified to preserve the required 16-foot-6-inch distance between roadways.

Matthew Callister, the attorney for the West Las Vegas residents who want the street reopened, said he’s unlikely to drop the lawsuit, even though the underlying issue has been resolved. The suit claims the closure of F Street violated Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs.

Callister said a big part his job now will be to monitor how the new law is implemented, “to make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go.”

Callister, a former Las Vegas councilman, said he believes the government’s poor record of notifying citizens of F Street’s closure wasn’t accidental. “It has to have been an intentional act. They wanted to wall off the poorest minority area and keep it walled off,” he said.

Callister isn’t the only one who — citing the historical treatment of West Las Vegas, and how F Street directly links to the gleaming vision of Symphony Park — believes the city’s push to close the street didn’t happened for the innocent reasons offered.

Yet no one contacted by the Sun could show proof that there were hidden motives at play.

“It is speculation at this point,” Horsford said. “All I can do is take these leaders at their word.”

For his part, Goodman said he understands the symbolic nature of the outcry over F Street. But don’t blame the city, he said.

“All I know that is that I’ve gone to the West Side my entire adult life,” the mayor said. “I’m one of the few white lawyers who used to represent the young African-Americans who had criminal problems over there. I would go there, and I always took Las Vegas Boulevard, I took Martin Luther King, I took Owens, I took Washington — I never took F Street in my life.

“I understand symbolism, and I sympathize with symbolism, because if I felt that I was being picked upon because of color, race or belief, I would be livid. But that certainly was not our intention here. I wish all these things had been brought up initially so we could address them.”

Discussion: 24 comments so far…

By atdleft

6/28/09 at 7:26 a.m.

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Wow, just wow. If LV Mayor Goodman were really interested in discussing the plan to close F Street, why didn't he have the city disclose the plan earlier? If Lawrence Weekly is to be believed, not even he knew and he was on the LV City Council! And Oscar Goodman really thinks this kind of "leadership" is what qualifies him to run for Governor? Gimme a break!
By richardmchale

6/28/09 at 8:08 a.m.

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Once again, the residents of West Las Vegas will shoot themselves in the foot and complain to any who listen that they are lame, gosh darn it.

Folks, F Street being open or closed does not do a damn thing to create jobs, lift yourselves out of poverty, or have any real effect on your path to betterment. Working together as a community to get educated, create jobs and stable families does better your lives. If you really want to reverse the historic inequities visited on West Las Vegas, skip the road opening and use the money to improve your skills and education, open businesses, and upgrade your community yourselves without waiting for someone else to do it for you. That is the path to success that everyone takes - if they truly want success.

Note: Wanting things to stay the same (F Street stays open, the neighborhood never changes) and expecting different results is a form of delusion. I still wonder why there was not more support for the Moulin Rouge to reopen. Some black activists fought it, for whatever reason, but that is just one example of a world-class business that would have bettered West Las Vegas in every way. Why not put your energies into those types of projects, rather than fight to maintain the status quo of an inconsequential street?
By maybevegas

6/28/09 at 11 a.m.

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So let me get this straight, since the Sun won't address the issue. It is 750+/- feet from F street to D street, which will have an under/overpass. And we are supposed to feel sorry for some guys auto business (sue in court for condemnation) and how taxpayers will get lsot trying to find D Street and then go downtown?

This is ridiculous and nothing more than symbolism. Hell, the money would be better spent building a new Moulin Rouge than opening up the street again!

Callister is just trying to get his name in the fold for another run at politics. I'm sure it couldn't have anything to do with trying to save taxpayer's money with two overpass' so close to each other. No, no, you're right Mr. Callister, the only thing that went on was prejudicial.

Hell, I'm tired of walking around the fire hydrant in my front yard. Maybe Mr. Callister will have time to take that fight up?!
By VegasSmitty

6/28/09 at 11:10 a.m.

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Easy fix, just jack up the taxes of the homes on F street to cover the additional costs!
By TwoCents

6/28/09 at 12:09 p.m.

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As soon as they finish the F Street porthole, residents will regret the amount of traffic they invited. My business is near Union Park and I used F street every day to access the freeway. Why would a neighborhood invite excess traffic?

Reminds me of the wasteful boondoggle CLV engaged in to create the most worthless and dangerous traffic control project ever: Alta Drive between Rancho and Valley View. The rich get what they want. The poor get what they want. Who's looking out for the rest of us?
By its2hot

6/28/09 at 12:24 p.m.

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Just another example of taxpayer dollars going to the Obama followers. What's a trillion dollars amongst friends enjoy the freebies you only have a few more years to come and the freebies will cease. Obama and the rest of the lunatics in office are ensuring this will be the last time for years to come that they're voted into office.

They don;t want the drugs, prostitution, crime, drinking, gang banging, robbery, killings, murdering, and all other elements they're not responsible for committing in and around their communities to stop. They want to continue feeling sorry for their pathetic choices and the pathetic life style they choose to live so they don't what to become responisble humans. Why work when we can blame, steal, lie, cheat, stay drunk, smoke crack, complain, etc... etc... etc... just so they can suck off the system and get more freebies.

Welcome to the Obama land, just another poor soul we're being force fed to support so they don't have to become responsible citizens. C'mon 2010 and 2012, you're all out of here.
By mred

6/28/09 at 1:54 p.m.

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Keep it closed! It will help keep the Cro-magnon men that dwell within the big ugly building on Bonanza from migrating to the rest of the City. Have you ever seen a Shermosaurus?
By max77477

6/28/09 at 2:20 p.m.

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Being new to Las Vegas, I can feel how the community must feel looking at the beautiful strip and the attention it brings to the city. West Las Vegas feels like it is excluded from this city and when I drive by there also I feel the same way, as if it is totally two different worlds.
Opening the street does not not seem to be a very logical or realistic idea. But it is about principle and that to many people matters a lot. When you feel cheated or devalued you will fight back.
Instead the battle has been won. Use the money for the benefit of the entire community and spring forth something that will improve, create jobs, and opportunity, and show the rest of the city that F street was the beginning not and ending.
By Phargo

6/28/09 at 2:54 p.m.

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The F street mess is just another example of too much power wielded over the minorities. The minorities are now represented by powerful entities in city, county, state and federal governments. Just ask the minorities what they want and then give it to them. it will be cheaper and they always get want they want anyway, contrary to what they (the minorities) say.
By mrx149

6/28/09 at 3:21 p.m.

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It's okay to declare eminent domain and take people's houses to widen the 95 but god forbid the west side residents drive a block to the next street. What a waste of money. Not to mention the enormous spaghetti bowl exit that was built because the D street exit wasn't enough.
By maybevegas

6/29/09 at 7:30 a.m.

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Max77477 said"Instead the battle has been won. Use the money for the benefit of the entire community and spring forth something that will improve, create jobs, and opportunity, and show the rest of the city that F street was the beginning not and ending"
What is improved by adding a redundant underpass? Is spending the money for the benefit of anyone outside of a few block radius? I'd say no.
F Street, the beginning? To what, government waste and cow-tieing to minorities to appease them?
Do you really think that the jobs created for construction will benefit the immediate surrounding citizens? Not a chance! And, if you believe that future jobs will be created, you are crazy.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

6/29/09 at 9:07 a.m.

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Chuck Muth calculated the detour at 60 seconds. MapQuest shows it at about the same amount of time (just a two block trip).

So when it comes to spending that much money on such a trivial amount of time you have to think something is up.

This isn't about race, that is a red herring. This is about wasting tax dollars to spend on projects for well connected friends of our politicians. But what worries me most is that we will spend all this money now and once the project is complete the government will come in, condemn those peoples home take them by force and hand them over to private developers to expand the shopping, condos and casinos.
By maybevegas

6/29/09 at 9:19 a.m.

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PRG said: "once the project is complete the government will come in, condemn those peoples home take them by force and hand them over to private developers to expand the shopping, condos and casinos."

I own property in that area and that will never happen! Seriously, you have so much empty land available now along Bonanza/Alta/industrial in-fill sites. Look at a map and nothing has occurred north of 95 of any consequence. It will take 15 years at a minimum and that assumes we get back on track this year.
By LV4LIFE

6/29/09 at 10:27 a.m.

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hmm, a lot of bigots hiding behind their poorly thought out posts here. Most of you just miss the point entirely. And I realize that any attempt to explain how these people feel and the poor notification and implemintaion of this project by our elected officials leaving these people with no other option but to fight, will fall of deaf ears. I will say this though...."How many times can you kick your dog before he bites you"?
By lv1

6/29/09 at 1:16 p.m.

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Waste of money pure and simple. That doesn't make me a biggot. There is not some fantastic view of the city that is being suppressed, it is not cutting anyone off when there is another way around blocks away. If they were trying to cut the residents off they would have built a fortress around their neighborhood. This is merely a "cry wolf", poor me, and I like all the other taxpayers are footing the bill. The money could be better spent to revitalize the area and provide services for those in need. Greedy and senseless on their part!
By logic_should_rule

6/29/09 at 5:28 p.m.

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There you go: support the reopening of F street or you're a bigot. That about says it all...
By getalife

6/29/09 at 9:34 p.m.

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LV4LIFE,

Sorry you feel so poorly about your lot in life that you label anyone who disagrees with your pathetic social engineering a biggot.

Typical liberal piece of @%$&, when you can't really explain why somebody has a better idea or that somebody actually has to try and improve themselves you pull the race card.

I am a white male; what's next do you want my home for your pathetic "experiment" in socialism.

Here is a better idea; sent me your particulars and I will buy you a one way flight to some socialist mecca you dream to belong to.

Your quote "kick the dogs"; how many times can the socialists drain my piggy bank before it bites back.
By Phargo

6/29/09 at 10:46 p.m.

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Lv4life is just trying to foment hatred with his "well thought out post" It is wasted however as no one hates anyone. Horsford just wants to spend more money fixing a problem that isn't really a problem. The only time politicians steal money is when they spend your money, if the money stays in the treasury no one can steal it. they have to figure a way to get it out to contractors so they can accept kickbacks.Haven't we put enough of them in jail? There's room for more.
By 70aarcuda

6/29/09 at 11:02 p.m.

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why dont they just realign the bus service to go down D street...cover the west side and come back out on D street.

Would add only a few minutes to the route..better then spending 70 millions.
By maybevegas

6/30/09 at 8:55 a.m.

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Is Mr. Willis an attempt at making a story about how the closure of F Street hurt his business? Look at the photo. He has one tool box and what looks like any Las Vegas home's garage with crap everywhere. How about we buy Mr. Willis an actual garage to work out of and save the $70M?
By Dahn_Shaulis

7/4/09 at 1:21 p.m.

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The F Street story is about democracy. Westside residents used the right to organize, petitions, peaceful demonstrations, and lawsuits to present their valid grievances. A brief timeline:

1943: Mayor Cragin refuses business licenses of Black businesses unless they relocate to Westside. Restrictive covenants create defacto segregation

1945: West Side residents petition Mayor Cragin to pave "E" Street. Requests denied.

1951: As compromise to White Bonanza Village residents, a "100-foot wide buffer highway" constructed at Highland Avenue.

1954-1955 Berkley Square subdivision constructed as "the first subdivision in Nevada built by and for African Americans."

1956: City of Las Vegas applies for federal urban renewal money, condemning property for "better" use. Planning Department extends slum clearance program by recommending federal highway (I-15) be routed through the Westside

1957: Westside residents protest highway plan. Plan tied in with urban renewal to placate residents. 200 families displaced with unfulfilled promise that they would be moved to better housing.

1960: 160 family dwellings completed. Does not meet housing demand. Advisory Urban Renewal Committee suggests further low-income projects should be built outside the Westside. Suggestion ignored by planners.

1964: Title VI Civil Rights Act prohibits disparate treatment in federally funded projects.

1968: Seven streets closed on the Westside. Hundreds from the Westside protest street closures, but streets remain closed.

1971: In response to Westside protests, F and D Streets reconfigured to access Downtown.

1980s-1990s: "Homeless Corridor" built in area adjacent to Westside.

2004: Planned expansion of Interstate Highway (I-15). F Street renamed City Parkway on development side of I-15. Government agencies claim they notified 4 residents.

2005: NDOT holds hearings for I-15 widening to Apex. According to NDOT, the closing of D and F Street are not in the plan.

2006: Las Vegas City Council votes to close F and D streets as part of I-15 highway expansion. Councilman Weekly claims he did not know the plan would include street closings.

2007: Environmental Assessment of "I-15 Improvements to Apex" published. No Environmental Impact Statement is completed. According to the report, "the proposed area includes a larger proportion of African Americans (28%) than the County (9%).

2008: Concrete wall built across F Street which cuts off only direct access between the Westside and $6 Billion Downtown redevelopment zone. City Council members claim they know nothing about the closure. Stop the F Street Closure Coalition formed

2009: Protest march on Las Vegas City Hall. Ora Bland, Estella Jimerson, National Action Network, Stop the F Street Closure file Federal civil rights lawsuit against City of Las Vegas and NDOT. After political pressure from Westside residents, City agrees to reopen D Street.
By ADSnowden

7/26/09 at 10:56 a.m.

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Thanks Dahn Shaulis, I personally appreciate your contribution (s). Being provided with some "factual information" should be helpful to those who assume that a level playing field exists for ALL. The People should quit crying foul and, take responsibility for their own community! When a SYSTEM (created by men) actively ignores and basic tenants of FREEDOM, JUSTICE and EQUALITY it then, rejects the legitimate rights of others to protest and to petition for a remedy, this is an attack on JUSTICE to every person, not just one group. We are different, GOD made it that way. No matter what we perceive our differences are, we will always be linked together in terms of our basic needs. The ability to recognize our differences and not be personally threatened by them is the path to HUMANITY, this is what separates US from ANIMALS. I am inspired by the diverse opinions as long as there is discussion there is progress.
By ljthefro

8/28/09 at 3:51 p.m.

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Dahn Shaulis has an error in that timeline: D Street was never proposed to be closed in the recent widening project.