Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Trailblazing Goynes-Brown ready to continue to build on NLV’s now-strong foundation

North Las Vegas Mayor-elect Pamela Goynes-Brown

Wade Vandervort

North Las Vegas Mayor-elect Pamela Goynes-Brown poses for a photo at North Las Vegas City Hall Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2022.

North Las Vegas Mayor-elect Pamela Goynes-Brown

North Las Vegas Mayor-elect Pamela Goynes-Brown is interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun at North Las Vegas City Hall Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2022. Launch slideshow »

North Las Vegas is truly Pam Goynes-Brown’s city.

She’s lived here since she was 2 years old, taught in schools in and around North Las Vegas for 35 years and was first elected to the City Council in 2011. This month, she was elected as the city’s mayor and will be the first Black person to serve in that office on a fulltime basis.

She will be sworn in on Dec. 7 knowing both the city and its government down to the cellular level yet ready to learn more in her new role, she said.

Her Day 1 plan: Engage in candid conversations with city management.

“I am such a team player when it comes to my leadership style. So I want to have input, and let them know that, you know, this is a learning curve for all of us,” she said during an interview last week from her corner office at City Hall that offered sweeping views of her city. “Even though we’ve been at this for a while, we learn something new. There’s no two days that are the same on this job. Mistakes may be made, but we’re going to grow together.”

As a resident, Goynes-Brown knew North Las Vegas when its boundaries stopped at Craig Road. As a leader, she knew it when its bond ratings were at junk status.

Boom and bust have taken North Las Vegas on a roller coaster. When Goynes-Brown came to City Hall — while she was still an assistant principal at Jesse D. Scott Elementary School just north of Bruce Street and Ann Road — she served on the council with outgoing Mayor John Lee to pull the city out of the Great Recession.

Lee calls his role in the recovery Chapter One of the reborn North Las Vegas. Goynes-Brown’s era will be Chapter Two, he said.

“I have and the council has complete confidence in Mayor-elect Goynes-Brown,” Lee said. “(She has) overwhelming support from the city staff, overwhelming support from everyone who lives in this community. She won by a huge margin. She’s trusted, she’s loved, she’s experienced and she’s prepared to move this city to Chapter Two of North Las Vegas’ great comeback. I am so proud of her.”

Goynes-Brown said she was looking forward to the continued revitalization of the city’s downtown core, which she calls the North Las Vegas Gateway. And she returns Lee’s compliments.

“I like to say that the foundation has been laid with our current mayor, John Lee. Part of that foundation was laid with a vision that took all of our heads to put together to say, ‘This is what we want to see in our city,’ ” she said. “When I first came on council, the city was going through some pretty dire times. So to understand where we are now, you kind of have to understand the history of where we were, where we came from. Failure was not an option, definitely not in my eyes, and those of my colleagues as well. We were working on a strong vision over the last decade. And what you see now is, it’s starting to come to fruition. I say this is the tip of the iceberg.”

Generational leadership

Goynes-Brown’s parents, Theron and Naomi Goynes, brought her to North Las Vegas in 1964. The couple, revered in town and with an elementary school named in their honor, earned about 70 years of experience between them as educators before retiring. They still live here.

Her father was an administrator, and her mother was a jack of many trades: kindergarten teacher and districtwide curriculum designer, reading specialist, high school dean and middle school assistant principal. The couple taught on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, where Goynes-Brown was born, before moving to North Las Vegas during a period of growth for the Clark County School District.

Goynes-Brown followed in her father’s professional footsteps in two ways: as an educator, a career she retired from four years ago; and as a North Las Vegas City Council member. Theron Goynes served on the council for 20 years, making his way to mayor pro tem, or vice mayor. When he led a City Council meeting in the mayor’s absence in 1981, he became the first Black person in Nevada to head a government body.

Councilman Isaac Barron — who, like Lee and Goynes-Brown, is a lifelong North Las Vegan — said that Goynes-Brown was extremely level-headed and didn’t rush to make a decision.

When Goynes-Brown was determining whether to run for office, Barron said he “told her she was exactly what (the city) needs. She is the type of person who measures all sides and takes time to make a deliberation.”

“She doesn’t panic. She doesn’t make hasty decisions,” he said. “You can bet she came up with the best decision she can possibly make. That’s a big deal.”

And here she is. She convincingly won the mayor’s seat, besting opponent, State Sen. Pat Spearman, with 66% of the vote.

Goynes-Brown speaks excitedly of the planned green spaces, walkable spaces, cultural representation, restaurants, shops, housing and medical offices at the North Las Vegas Gateway. She brags about the city’s current bond ratings, which give the city borrowing power for further growth. And she speaks with reverence for her constituents.

“I’m boots on the ground. Part of getting people to trust in your leadership skills is you have to talk to them,” she said. “When I talk to my constituents, I see from their eyes. I take their suggestions. I listen to what they have to say.”

[email protected] / 702-990-8949 /

@HillaryLVSun