Lombardo planned veto of bill to help families in sinking homes in North Las Vegas
Dana Gentry
(Nevada Current) A bill aimed at relocating predominantly Black families who have been living in sinking homes for decades almost suffered a quiet demise on Gov. Joe Lombardo’s desk, according to state Sen. Dina Neal, who sponsored and salvaged Senate Bill 450, a measure four years in the making.
“He vetoed 75 bills and he was going to veto this one,” Neal, told a gathering of Windsor Park residents during a meeting at a neighborhood church Wednesday.
Neal said she was caught off guard by the planned veto.
“It just so happened that someone called me at 8 o’clock in the morning and they told me. I was able to call and convince them not to do it.”
Neal says she spoke with Lombardo Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer, her former legislative colleague. Lombardo, she says, decided not to derail four years of effort.
“Despite the governor’s continued concerns about the feasibility and implications of the legislation itself, he believes it’s important to support the residents of Windsor Park and give the program a chance to succeed,” Lombardo’s spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ray, said via email.
The law goes into effect July 1. It provides $37 million – $25 million from federal pandemic relief money and $12 million from North Las Vegas – to purchase land, build homes, and relocate the 90 or so families remaining in the neighborhood, which has long been neglected by the city. The law permits the state general fund to front NLV’s $12 million share of the relocation and withhold tax revenue from the city until it has been fully refunded.
A 1998 city ordinance prohibits residents from remodeling or making other improvements to their properties, such as building a block wall. Yet NLV, which has been paying homeowners $50,000 since the late 1990s to abandon their sinking homes, has taken no measures to prevent new buyers from moving in. The city has even facilitated down payment assistance.
NLV officials say placing a notice on title for the properties regarding the subsidence could have resulted in legal liability.
NLV Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown has been at odds with Neal over the legislation. Goynes-Brown alleges Neal demanded the homes be rebuilt on the same land. Neal says that’s untrue.
Neal alleges the city, which opposed the bill, engaged in a campaign to discredit her.
“They were like ‘if we can do anything to smear her name, we’re going to do it,’” Neal told the crowd. “But you guys knew me. You knew my work for 12 years. I have been an upstanding legislator…”
The City of North Las Vegas did not respond to a request for comment on Neal’s allegation.
“Sen. Neal is the only one who didn’t let us down,” said Myrtle Wilson, who purchased her Windsor Park home in 1965.
Legacy project
“I grew up knowing this story. I hadn’t even graduated from high school, and I knew my dad was here fighting for this issue,” Neal said in April before the bill’s introduction. Her father, the late state Sen. Joe Neal, was Nevada’s first Black state senator.
“I am tired of trying to tell the story to a group of people who have forgotten these people, who don’t care that they are living in this condition, and who are waiting for them to die out,” Neal said in April, breaking down in tears during the presentation. “I tell you that I’m not leaving this building without a remedy for those families.”
On Wednesday, Neal told the Current she believed at the time of the presentation she would succeed. “I felt like I made the case. I provided 50 years of records and I think that made the difference.”
Windsor Park, a remnant of Southern Nevada’s segregated past, was built during the 1960s and was home to close to 250 predominantly Black families. In the 1980s the land beneath the homes near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue, which were built on geologic fault lines and a depleting aquifer, began to subside as the city extracted groundwater.
North Las Vegas’s remedy — a grant of $50,000 to each homeowner to leave – did not appeal to those who had paid off their homes and balked at the idea of starting over. About 90 remained in their homes, unable to open doors and secure windows as the structures subsided.
The city stopped maintaining the neighborhood. Burned out street lights went unreplaced and weeds overtook cracked sidewalks.
The new law requires the state Housing Division to arrange for the purchase of land nearby and construction of new homes, which will be transferred to the current owners, along with any encumbrances in place on their existing properties. The state is required to ensure the land selected for the relocation is suitable for construction.
Residents with no mortgage will receive a new home of comparable size free and clear. Tenants with valid leases will be permitted to occupy the new properties.
The state will also pay $10,000 in restitution to the original owners who accepted NLV’s $50,000 offer and ended up in what Neal calls “substandard housing.”
The law makes it unlawful under most circumstances to sell property in Windsor Park, but since the program is voluntary, holdouts may manifest. Neal says exemptions, if necessary, will be determined.
Neal says she hopes the city will turn the neighborhood into a park. “I just want to make sure no one else can move in there.”
And what would Neal’s father say about her victory?
“He’d probably say ‘I can’t believe you pulled this off.’”