Timothy Pratt

Story Archive

Youth teams’ rival goalie: Fuel costs: Soccer families who scraped for Hawaiian tourney are blocked and kept home; Thursday, June 19, 2008; Six youth soccer teams are the latest casualties of the unrelenting surge in fuel prices. They’re grounded in the Las Vegas Valley while an annual regional tournament continues apace in Hawaii. Others made it to the tournament only after coaches and parents borrowed the money.
Searching the shadows to promote care: Friday, June 13, 2008; The woman looked across an empty lot, then down at her notes.
Think tank: Tough times for Hispanics nationwide: Findings mirror Sun report on vally economy, but show immigrants staying; Wednesday, June 11, 2008; An overlooked aspect of Nevada’s economic downturn uncovered by the Sun two months ago has been given the national treatment by a Washington, D.C., group.
Brookings study: Vegas’ poor deserve tax credits: Valley has diverse low-income population; Sunday, June 8, 2008; A Brookings Institution analyst says the Las Vegas Valley has a greater cross section of poor people than most metropolitan areas, including working couples, large families and adults without children.
‘Green wave’ aims to sweep Hispanics into cause: National environmental group hopes free concert will boost anti-coal agenda; Wednesday, June 4, 2008; A pair of uncombed, college-aged Mexican pop singers tonight will usher in the first attempt by a national environmental organization to target Nevada’s Hispanics.
Agencies’ good intentions, poor finances: Saturday, May 31, 2008; At one point in the Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board’s occasionally contentious meeting Wednesday, Las Vegas Councilman Steve Ross became somewhat defensive.
Subsidized apartments could change hands: Las Vegas authority may manage 220 units in NLV; Wednesday, May 28, 2008; One local housing authority may hand over management of its public housing program to another in the coming weeks, a move that should help hundreds of low-income residents.
Groups that help needy finding the need is great: ‘Jaw-dropping’ data show more families seeking government help; Sunday, May 25, 2008; The economic downturn is hitting low-income residents in Nevada faster and harder than in the rest of the country, according to a Las Vegas Sun analysis.
Report: Illegal immigrants contribute billions to state: Analysis says exodus would cost state tens of thousands of jobs over time; Friday, May 23, 2008; If Nevada’s undocumented workers left tomorrow, the state would lose tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars, according to the first report to quantify the impact.
Urban League takes a shot at developing its own priorities: A consultant’s plan cost $46,000; this one will be free; Wednesday, May 14, 2008; What a difference $46,000 doesn’t make.
United Way redistributing wealth to local charities: Where precedent ruled, allocations now based on study of community needs; Monday, May 12, 2008; The Las Vegas Valley’s wealthiest private supporter of social service programs has changed the way it hands out money, making a tough transition that will cut a total of $2.1 million from 20 organizations over a two-year period.
Wisdom went with the words at Native Son: Community’s teacher shutters his West Las Vegas bookstore; Friday, May 2, 2008; The first black senator in Nevada’s Legislature, corporals and coaches, the first black women in the fire departments of Clark County and Las Vegas, directors of programs to help gang members, engineers, no-hitter pitchers — they all learned something at Native Son.
Poor people’s advocate may need a little help itself: Thursday, May 1, 2008; Officials for an organization that receives $4.5 million to fight poverty in Southern Nevada heard some startling news last week. Their nonprofit group, the Las Vegas-Clark County Urban League, had just $33.24 in the bank as of April 11.
First things first: For homeless, a home: Program offers shelter with no conditions and lots of help to those long on streets; Tuesday, April 22, 2008; After careening through the nation’s alleys and jail cells for half his life, 47-year-old Michael Sumling saw his future one Fremont Street morning in a plastic bottle of Coke — with urine and a cigarette butt in it.
Lines for Social Security cards may just get longer: Homeland Security change could force many legal residents to prove identity; Wednesday, April 16, 2008; The Las Vegas Valley’s Social Security Card Center, already among the nation’s busiest, will be even more of a headache for employees and customers if the federal government makes the agency enforce immigration laws, the head of the agency’s field worker union says.
Immigrants boost economy — but how much?: A study could help state avoid more surprises, but politics preserve willful ignorance; Monday, April 14, 2008; Nevada’s invisible workers are causing trouble for the state.
For the poor, tough times could get tougher: With more and more seeking help, officials consider new limits on benefits; Sunday, April 6, 2008; State officials are considering the longest list of possible cuts in food stamps and welfare benefits in nearly a decade. The ideas include such controversial proposals as putting a “family cap” on households receiving welfare, basically denying or reducing additional benefits to families that have more children while in the program. Another would disqualify entire families from receiving food stamps if the adult head of household does not look for a job.
VEGAS EXODUS: How a slump in housing construction has cost immigrant workers their jobs and sent them home; Sunday, April 6, 2008; Alejandro Salazar slumps into a cushioned seat halfway into the bus, looks out from under a baseball cap and thinks about a future more than a thousand miles away. He came to the Las Vegas Valley from Mexico five years ago to build houses, launching a run of $700-a-week paychecks that made it worth crossing the desert into the United States. But those weekly checks were whittled down to $200 over the past year; he sold his van and is returning to Aguascalientes. “At least I have family there,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
It’s the ’hood or Mom: Helping gangbangers choose: Saturday, March 29, 2008; The teenage boys in baggy shorts and girls in tight jeans had brought guns to school, stolen cars or broken into the homes of neighbors.
His dream: A Las Vegas without public housing: Tuesday, March 25, 2008; Carl Rowe worked in the system, then cursed it and said goodbye. More than a decade later, he’s back leading the Clark County Housing Authority.
State illegal immigrant hiring law won’t work: Nevada is told federal role preempts effort to fine employers; Saturday, March 22, 2008; An almost 6-month-old state law that calls for fining businesses employing illegal immigrants can’t be enforced, an official said Friday. The reason: The state attorney general’s office says immigration is an issue for the federal government, not states.
Sports radio, en español: Medium’s strength reflects population growth, local popularity of soccer; Wednesday, March 12, 2008; If you walk down the street in any Latin American city during a soccer game, you may hear a howled long vowel: “GOOOOOLLLL!” As of this month, that sound has hit the Las Vegas Valley. KENO 1460-AM, ESPN Deportes, has become the valley’s first 24/7 Spanish-language sports station.
No barriers for Mexico Symphony Orchestra: Conductor spans music traditions; Wednesday, March 12, 2008; It’s obvious that Enrique Batiz, conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, has thought about where he comes from and how he is seen.
Get ready for a royal runaround: Uninsured who need blood tests also need lots of patience; Thursday, March 6, 2008; If you are one of the 40,000 people who should get blood tests because of a hepatitis outbreak and you don’t have health insurance, here’s hoping you have some time on your hands and don’t give up easily when getting the runaround.
Agencies slip in registering poor to vote: Friday, Feb. 29, 2008; Poor people have less say at the polls in Nevada than in most of the nation — and public assistance offices appear to be partly to blame, according to a recently released report.
His job: Bring Vegas’ workforce up to speed: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008; John Ball favors stiffly starched shirts, but he’s no standard bureaucrat.

He fills in his analysis of jobs and the Las Vegas Valley’s economy with quotes from Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” He hands out an editorial from a small-town Oregon newspaper along with his resume, detailing how county supervisors fired him in 2006 from his job as the county’s chief executive — for refusing to increase their travel budget without airing the subject in public first.
Once again, a plan for renewing the Moulin Rouge: Proposal to revive civil rights landmark to be presented today; Monday, Feb. 25, 2008; For at least the third time in the past four years, the Moulin Rouge has announced it will rise again, this time propped up by a Virginia-based company’s investment. The Bonanza Road hotel’s owners will present their casino and hotel construction plans to the community this afternoon in a public meeting at their offices east of the hotel.
English-only rule on bus relaxed: Compromise seen as model for dealing with immigration; Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008; State and national civil liberties advocates have compelled a rural Nevada school district to roll back a policy prohibiting high school students from speaking Spanish on the bus.
Build homes in the desert, and the poor will come: Slowly, sales of federal lands create affordable housing; Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008; Maria Ninfa Martinez is on her couch shuffling envelopes, the bills inside them pushing up the pressure of the blood in her arteries.
She’s 73, and her husband is dead. She earned a paycheck for 58 years and has $1,194 in monthly Social Security benefits to show for it. Her rent is $625 a month. Then there’s her cancer and the bills it brings.
In school, but without a home: In one year, 55 percent more of the county’s students end up homeless; Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008; Shelly Hernandez’s voice broke with emotion as she recalled what a fourth grader told her a few weeks ago: She and her two sisters, all younger than 9, had been sleeping on the bare floor of a one-bedroom trailer.
Hernandez, a counselor at Will Beckley Elementary School, asked her colleagues at the school, “Can’t we at least get them sleeping bags and pillows?”
Turnover at helm, demographics lead some to ask: Are local NAACP’s best days gone?: Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008; The local chapter of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization has just named its third president in less than two months, a sign, some say, of disarray and ineffectiveness.
In economic fix, Ensign likely to get his tax shutout: Illegal immigrants who paid taxes would be denied a rebate; Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008; Jorge Sierra de la Rosa sat in a chair Monday at Sus Amigos Income Tax Service, one of at least 20 people waiting their turns in the small storefront along Eastern Avenue north of Desert Inn Road.
He wondered aloud whether Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had any conscience, pointing to an amendment the senator has proposed for the nation’s economic stimulus plan. It would prevent de La Rosa and millions of others nationwide from receiving tax rebates.
Hey, Las Vegas, here’s a taste of carnaval: Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008; Rosa Costa says she doesn’t think Las Vegas is ready for the “tapasexo,” a bit of glitter that barely covers the area between a woman’s legs in Brazil’s carnaval.
ACLU urges Esmeralda County to drop English-only rule: Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008
Eat your Cheerios, Hispanics told: ‘Nutrition guide’ says name brands are the way to healthy eating; Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008; At first blush, a bilingual pamphlet seems sincere in its dedication "to improving Latino health through traditional foods and lifestyles.” But inside, the marketing threatens to cancel out both the tradition and the nutrition, several experts said.
They got housing; they’ll get trouble: Software program expected to lead to fraud indictments against 15 in public housing; Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008; A local housing authority and federal agents are expected to announce next week the first large group of indictments for fraud captured with a new computer program that checks the Social Security numbers of low-income tenants against employment records.
Pressed into service: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008
Hispanic turnout high, reportedly heavily in Clinton’s favor: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008
Last minute pitch to Hispanic voters: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008
Caucus a target for Vegas cliches: Friday, Jan. 18, 2008
In the Bellagio’s basement, employees suddenly media stars: Friday, Jan. 18, 2008; Between a lawsuit threatening to take away the Bellagio’s at-large site and that of eight other casinos for Saturday’s caucus -- a suit tossed out hours later -- and the political weight of the Culinary Union’s 60,000 members -- suddenly the Bellagio’s basement cafeteria is ground zero.
Clinton’s, Obama’s Spanish ads seem almost an afterthought: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008; Why didn’t the campaigns put more resources into reaching potential Hispanic voters in their primary language?
Bursting at seams, consulate seeks a bigger, friendlier home: Mexican official complains of prejudice by building’s owner; Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008; Mariano Lemus Gas, Mexico’s consul in Las Vegas, made a plea to the valley’s Hispanic community in a recent edition of El Mundo, a local Spanish-language weekly.
Six years after becoming the valley’s first consulate, his downtown office needs a new home. He hopes the community can help.
The decision is mostly a result of the continuous growth in the area’s Mexican community. Demand at the office has gone from about 100 documents daily to nearly 180 during the past three years alone, while the consulate’s staff has gone from 10 to 16 since opening day, said Johannes Jacome, alternate consul.
Republicans to “whack the donkey”: Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008
Yes, we have no housing vouchers for you: How it’s supposed to work; Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008; UNLV senior Kristen Ruby got an A for a video she made in her fall semester digital storytelling course -- and uncovered a technological glitch that may have kept hundreds of poor people in the Las Vegas Valley from getting into a federally subsidized housing program.
Criminal pasts may leave families homeless: Friday, Dec. 21, 2007; More than 140 families may soon wind up on the streets, months after they were swept up in the Las Vegas Valley's largest-ever federally ordered eviction from public housing.
ENGLISH ONLY, EVEN IF BROKEN: Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007; A blog tied to a recently created group of Hispanic Republicans in Nevada includes several posts that sharply favor using English in the public sphere. The hitch: They're in broken English.
Students told to hold (native) tongue: Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007; The superintendent of the Esmeralda County School District has told parents from a small town that their high school children should speak only English on the bus and at school.
No money, but minority panel gets another push: Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007; A state commission lawmakers created to confront pressing issues facing minorities stopped meeting at least two years ago, touching off several moves to breathe life into the group.
Audit, and its report, give Urban League a bumpy start: Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007; Urban League Chief Financial Officer Vincent Austin had just said, "All we need is for people to say, 'Another minority agency went down the tubes because they didn't know how to manage money.' "