Friday, July 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.
The Las Vegas City Council is trying to deliver a message to slumlords and owners of abandoned property: We will no longer tolerate you.
At its most recent meeting, on July 16, the council slapped three property owners with $500-a-day civil fines for abandoned or neglected rental properties in the 6200 block of Bellota Drive, near Lake Mead and Jones boulevards.
The properties have become blighting influences, the council concluded.
That area is being targeted by Metro Police and the Southern Nevada Health District in an effort to improve living conditions.
The council, according to officials, plans to use the “full weight” of civil penalties on such neglectful property owners until they clean up their sites or sell them to owners who will. Those owners are increasingly banks.
The council toughened the law in 2005 when it added daily civil penalties to try to control neglected properties. Such sites can destabilize neighborhoods by attracting vandalism and more serious crime.
And things have been getting only worse because of the recent glut of foreclosures.
The council has several civil penalties to choose from when given evidence of neglectful property owners, ranging from a warning upon a first failed inspection and a one-time $120 fine after a second, all the way to a $1,000 penalty if a commercial property fails a fifth inspection.
Daily civil fees are charged at the council’s discretion.
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City, county and state emergency management officials are anxiously awaiting the news this morning from Washington, D.C. Homeland Security Department officials will be telling the states how much grant funding they’ll receive for fiscal 2009.
Last year, Nevada received $19 million. The year before, $21 million. Officials said they had little reason to believe those numbers would change drastically for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
Of that money, last year the city received $229,000 for its Urban Area Security Initiative.
According to Jim O’Brien, the county’s director of emergency management and homeland security, Clark County last year ultimately received $8.5 million out of the $19 million awarded the state.
Daniel Burns, spokesman for the state’s Emergency Management Division, said some of the new money will go toward developing new programs within the Southern Nevada Counter-Intelligence Center, near McCarran International Airport.
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The second of three “Safe Summer Nights” programs took place last night as part of a multiagency effort to fight crime in a West Las Vegas neighborhood.
The family-centered program, which included free food, games and a disc jockey, took place in the block of Doolittle Avenue and J Street. It was sponsored by the city, the Nevada Youth Alliance, Metro Police, Matt Kelly Elementary School and Operation Lasting Peace.
It’s part of an ongoing outreach effort in the area to get residents involved in their community and provide them with resources that can strengthen their neighborhood, Councilman Ricki Barlow said.
The third and final Safe Summer Night event is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 21 at Matt Kelly Elementary School, 1900 N. J St.
The program is part of Operation Lasting Peace, an initiative of the Southern Nevada Community Gang Task Force.
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