Senate panel advances initiative to reopen F Street

By Cy Ryan

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

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.