Senate panel advances initiative to reopen F Street

Leila Navidi

Colin Jacobs, left, and Barbara Crockett, members of the Coalition to Stop the F Street Closure march from F Street and Bonanza Road in downtown Las Vegas to City Hall to attend a redevelopment agency meeting Wednesday, January 7, 2009.

By Cy Ryan (contact)

Friday, May 15, 2009 | 5:49 p.m.

Residents fight for F Street reopening

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F Street March

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Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford

F Street: Taking on the Road to Nowhere (5-14-2009)
Protesters march against closure of F Street (4-18-2009)
Roadwork works up West Las Vegans (12-1-2008)

CARSON CITY – A Senate committee approved a plan calling for the city of Las Vegas and the state Transportation Department to join to re-open F Street in West Las Vegas, to allow the residents of the predominately black neighborhood a link to downtown and to the planned Union Park development.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, presented the proposal to the Senate Government Affairs Committee that included it in Assembly Bill 304 and sent it to the floor of the Senate.

Residents have criticized the closure at the city’s behest as continuing a decades-long pattern of disregard and mistreatment of the neighborhood, near downtown.

The project, according to the estimate of the state Department of Transportation, will cost anywhere from $40 million to $70 million for construction of an underpass.

Under the proposal, the Las Vegas City Redevelopment Agency would commit $2.5 million for design of the project. The city of Las Vegas would take $20 million of the money it receives from the 5 cent capital construction ad valorem tax to help finance the project.

Additional federal funds will be sought, including money that other states may forfeit in using the stimulus funds approved by Congress. The state Transportation Department will chip in toward the project.

Horsford said this would be a priority project for the Transportation Department. Senate Minority Leader William Raggio, R-Reno, sought assurances that money would not be taken from the department’s five high-priority projects.

Horsford said he would get written assurance from the department.

Councilman Ricki Barlow said the city was committed to providing the $20 million toward construction of the underpass.

Horsford, who grew up in West Las Vegas and whose Senate district includes part of that area, said the environmental study and its approval by the federal government will probably take 18 months. He said the project, however, could be completed in two to three years.

The amendment is being included in a bill that requires local governments to include in their plans the protection of historic neighborhoods.

The bill goes to the floor of the Senate for a final vote next week and must returned to the Assembly for approval of the Horsford amendment.

The Las Vegas City Council voted in 2006 to close down F Street as part of the job to widen I-15 from the Spaghetti Bowl to Craig Road in North Las Vegas.

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

By pbud33

5/15/09 at 9:27 p.m.

Suggest removal

This is an ignorant waste of money and time. Why don't these people invest this time into the children of their neighborhood. Encourage a drug free life, education, and employment. Discourage crack use, prostitution and homelessness. Walk a few hundred extra feet, and take washington under the freeway, or H street to Bonanza under the freeway. Then they can avoid the day laborers and homeless that lined up under F street making the road nearly impassable.

Talk about ignorance. Keep F street closed. Who cares! This is just so ignorant I cannot rant anymore... Impeach Horsford for ignorance
By pbud33

5/15/09 at 9:28 p.m.

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Spend 40-70 million for a stupid underpass.... only if they cur welfare and benefits to those living in the area
By dart330

5/15/09 at 10:18 p.m.

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This is beyond retarded, look at this street on google street view, it is straight up ghetto. The only reason these people are complaining is because they are lazy and want attention.

I work across the street from this intersection and it really makes no difference that this street is closed. Using racism as an excuse is getting pretty old, nobody is buying it anymore.
By maybevegas

5/15/09 at 10:19 p.m.

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Horsford doesn't have the guts to balance the budget, but ask him to be the torchbearer for W LV and he's the man. I wonder at $20 million, how much we would save by giving everyone in the area $5,000 instead (4000 people = $20m)?
By Optimistic

5/16/09 at 7:38 a.m.

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Don't say Horsford doesn't have the guts to balance the budget. If you follow it, you know he's the only one who is working to not only balance the budget, but propose long-term solutions to our every-two-year budget problems.

Having said that, this proposal to spend up to $70 million on F street is a pretty boneheaded proposal. Giving that money to the residents is not a good idea or practical. $70 million is not chump change. And while most of it comes from non-state sources, any and all of it would be better put to use in education.

Horsford grade for leading the debate to a long-term budget solution = A.

Horsford grade for F street project proposal = D.
By Dahn_Shaulis

5/16/09 at 1:02 p.m.

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This is a small victory for neighborhood democracy in Las Vegas. People in Sun City Anthem and the Northwest should be encouraged and emboldened with their efforts to battle power. Democratic progress, in the form of libraries and hospitals in this town, for example, has frequently required action from the community (read Storming Caesars Palace by Anelise Orleck). For PBUD33, your attempt to reduce the community to a racist stereotype tells much more about you than it does about the Westside. Westside residents have spent considerable time and effort on their community.
One of the greatest problems has been that the city, county, state, and federal government have underfunded development in the Westside and have failed to include communities in long-range planning. In this case, government officials from the FHWA, NDOT, RTC, and City of Las Vegas failed to understand the environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts of widening I-15 and closing F Street and an Environmental Impact Statement was not completed. These officials also failed to make the planning process democratic, which is a requirement of SAFE-TEA. For all of those ignorant souls who are against reopening F Street, I suggest that you learn a little about the social, cultural, economic, and political history of Las Vegas and the federal laws that are meant to remedy environmental justice.
By b_greene

5/17/09 at 8:06 a.m.

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Dahn,

Most of these reactions which show a very limited use of intelligence and an even worse understanding of history are not accident and are not surprising at all.

People who speak of crack, prostitution, and the like are not only ignorant of the actual problems but oblivious to the crimes and criminals that plague their own communities.

People make everything a race issue when indeed it doesn't have to be. Drug use is more rampant in Caucasian communities then it is in minority communities, so is prostitution, the nevada educational system is terrible in general not simply indicative of the Westside. The senate voted the way they did because what they city did was wrong.

The senators had testimony from real residents on the westside not the caricatures that these people makes us out to be, as well as the director of N Dot and the city who had documentation to back our claims, not the caricatures that these people makes us out to be.

The foolhardy comments about giving residents money is laughable at best. The community doesn't want a monetary hand out, they want economic and social justice.

That said, there is no point arguing with people who have no redemptive qualities in their posts. There is no substantive debate just a bunch of fools who are race baiting and spreading bigotry all while attempting to brand us as race card carriers.

I'm glad that I have learned a lot from being from the westside as well as networking through college so that I wouldn't have such a slanted view of people. Idiots come in all shapes, colors, and from all economic backgrounds. The coalition is made up of people of all races which shows the truth which is that people across a broad strata believe in justice.
By Dahn_Shaulis

5/17/09 at 7:29 p.m.

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Mr. Greene,

Your points are well taken. I thank you and many others for standing up with the community for environmental and social justice. That's what democracy is all about.