City of North Las Vegas
2008 State of the City Address
Mayor Michael L. Montandon

Welcome to the 12th Annual State of the City address and thank you for that warm welcome. I’m honored to be your Mayor and have this opportunity to talk about our wonderful City.

I’d like to begin by thanking my fellow City Council members for their dedication and commitment to North Las Vegas. As a team, we have accomplished, and will continue to accomplish, amazing things in our City. Each year, when preparing for this speech, I reflect upon the prior year’s achievements and ponder the upcoming challenges and opportunities, and I’m thankful to be part of such a dynamic team.

My appreciation also extends to our City Manager, Gregory Rose, and his executive team. They are the workhorses who implement the Council’s vision and they have made, and will continue to make, unbelievable progress in achieving that vision.

This year’s theme is "North Las Vegas, A Youthful Community." Much like our city population, the attendance at this event continues to grow. I want to thank the creative team who produce this event, which is touted as the best in the Valley!

When this time of year rolls around and I begin to think about how to describe the state of our City, I ponder the past and contemplate the future. And it struck me....that’s the kind of philosophizing we do every day in creating our community...we consider the past and plan the future.

At various places and points in time, societies have been in a position where their needs are met to a level sufficient to allow them to spend time on higher functions, like pondering and philosophizing. This is similar to how the Ancient Greeks philosophized about their civilization.

They considered how decisions early in life affect the future and how the education of their youth would determine their abilities later in life. They pondered the meaning of life and how to achieve an ideal society.

This same contemplation can be applied to our personal lives. For example, think back to when you started your family. You and your spouse joined lives and brought your resources together to form your foundation. Then you focused your energy on getting jobs, creating a home, and ultimately starting a family. Those early decisions were made always with the goal of a bright future in mind.

At some point, later in life - maybe you’re there already - you will have reached a day when you are able to look at what you accomplished, revel in your successes, learn and grow from your failures and feel young again.

A community evolves in much the same way. And today, we celebrate and reflect on what North Las Vegas has accomplished as we grew and matured. We’re at a point in our maturity where we can focus on our youth and join them in building a vibrant future.

Join me in this journey of reflection about our magical City with everything our youth and young at heart need or desire.

According to the US Census Bureau, the median age in North Las Vegas is 28 years old. So it’s no surprise that 52% of North Las Vegas households have children under 18. And we have more youth than any other large City in Nevada with over a third of our population under 18. Comparatively, Las Vegas has only 27% and Henderson has only 22%. Clark County as a whole has 26%. So North Las Vegas holds the title of the City with the most youthful population in Nevada!

Not only do we have the highest percentage of youth in our population, but that number is increasing, even with a Sun City community in our town.

So why is North Las Vegas the community of choice for youth and young families? People come here for jobs, attainable housing, the amenities, the family oriented lifestyle, and a quality of life second to none in the Las Vegas Valley.

So now that they’re here, the City has taken action to ensure that we provide programs, services, activities, and amenities that appeal to and benefit the young, and young at heart.

To engage our youth in city government, North Las Vegas has embarked on some programs to get them involved.

In October, the City Council approved the creation of a Youth Council of 14- to 19-year-olds. We’re currently recruiting participants, who will get the chance to learn about local government through activities like job shadowing in their areas of interest. They’ll learn about public policy and ultimately serve as an advisory commission to the City Council.

Another interesting fact about North Las Vegas is that 8% of our households have children living with their grandparents. This brings up the subject of multi-generational services and programs. This is also significant when you consider the growth of our senior population.

To address this community need, our Parks and Recreation Department is working on a Multi-Generational Center, called Sky View, that combines features designed for different age groups. These include multi-purpose rooms for senior citizens and teens, an indoor therapy, lap swimming and exercise pool, a 5,000 square-foot fitness room, a dance room and demonstration kitchen.

The 36,000 square-foot recreation center will be the central feature of a park to be built on 36 acres near the intersection of Centennial Parkway and Statz Street. The park is expected to include baseball fields, basketball courts, outdoor water play pool and splash pad, a large playground, dog run, promenade and open play turf. We expect to open the first phase of this project by spring 2010.

Life must be lived as play.-Plato

North Las Vegas had 1.7 million visitors access its programs, services and parks and trails over the past fiscal year. That number represents the third year we’ve seen a 10 percent rate of growth in use over the year before.

Ask the citizens if the youth, below voting age, have a voice. Look at an old guy like me who can hardly fathom the liability of a skate park, then see the emails and survey results from the youth who insisted we needed it. That translates to Sandstone Ridge Park, a $5.9 million project with all the new park amenities, plus a skate park.

Sandstone Ridge Park offers families from across the Valley more than its amenities. It serves as a trail head for the Las Vegas Wash Trail System, one of the best places to explore the rugged nature of Southern Nevada.

The City has continued to invest in renovating older parks. Through the Community Parks Project the City has spent in excess of $10 million over the past five years.

Among the most recent renovation projects, Tonopah Park and Boris Terrace Park received new rubberized playground surfacing, shade canopies for barbecue areas and several new play pieces. Each park received $330,000 in renovations and are expected to re-open later this month.

The Bruce & Tropical Park is a planned $14.5 million park, funded in part by the Bureau of Land Management. It will sit on 20 acres at the southeast corner of Tropical Parkway and Bruce Street. It will include soccer fields, picnic tables, walking paths and playground. This park will bring a stately amenity to the fast-growing neighborhoods in the northeastern portion of the City.

We’re striking a balance in providing open space, such as with Craig Ranch Regional Park in whose design we’re preserving dozens of acres of rolling greens and mature trees, while incorporating dynamic amenities.

Our City Council recently adopted a master plan for Craig Ranch Regional Park, formerly known as Craig Ranch Golf Course.

The plan will enhance the park’s beauty and offer something for everyone -- from the outdoor pool with beach sand and large areas of terraced lawns to an amphitheater shaded by tree groves.

The project will include a dog park, aquatic center, baseball fields, basketball courts and an outdoor swimming pond.

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life. -Plato

A key component of a youthful community is the ability to learn through access to research. What better place to research and read than a library?

In just a couple of months we’ll be breaking ground on our newest library at Alexander Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard. This $13 million project will include a 16,400 square-foot library and a park on about 4.2 acres with tot lots, demonstration gardens, shade structures and walking paths.

Both of our existing libraries have seen tremendous increases in use recently. This past year alone, our Library District has provided almost 600 programs and tours for more than 25,000 participants. Beyond providing programs and services, from book circulation and internet access to lectures, seminars and story times, our Library District has been going out into the community to take the library experience to kids who might not be aware of everything our libraries offer. These outreach efforts in 2007 included visits to over 6,000 kids in school groups, Head Start classes and youth organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club.

Our libraries also have become important cultural centers for children and families, with activities that in recent years have become tradition, such as our children’s pipe orchestra, bilingual story times and summer reading club. The summer reading club is especially important because it connects the business community with efforts to improve children’s literacy in our community. Each year, participating businesses provide children rewards and incentives for reading.

As a City, we strive to be a destination for learning. In addition to our focus on young children, we believe learning is a lifelong endeavor. To quote Aristotle: Education is an ornament in prosperity ...

We want our children to be the best and have the best. So we’re increasing efforts to ensure they have every opportunity to learn to read and in turn lead. To that end, we’re exploring new ways of boosting literacy, such as bringing the Apple partnership to North Las Vegas. The Apple program, which stands for All People Promoting Literacy Efforts, has had great success in Henderson and we’d like to replicate that success for North Las Vegas. The program offers children incentives for reading, while providing tips to caregivers and parents on how to make reading fun.

Within the past couple of years we’ve also seen the doors to our first charter school open with tremendous success. One of only seven charter schools within the Clark County School District, the 100 Academy of Excellence is grooming about 500 pupils from kindergarten to fifth grade to be outstanding citizens and leaders in a part of our community that has been home to some of our most at-risk youth.

We’re home to the Cheyenne Campus of the College of Southern Nevada. The college is one of the City’s most important employers with nearly 500 full-time employees all focused on ensuring we have a highly skilled and educated workforce both for the present and the future.

We’re also working with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in planning a campus, spanning over 2,000 acres on federal land near the Northern Beltway and I-15. UNLV and the City, in partnership with other community agencies, are assessing how best to guide preliminary plans for the picturesque site. Right now, we’re envisioning educational, community and cultural uses to complement residential and business developments planned for the area. We expect this will become a major economic center for North Las Vegas.

North Las Vegas is currently served by only one hospital, North Vista Hospital. But it has been named among the nation’s best. The Tenth Annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study issued in October gave North Vista Hospital a five-star rating in joint replacement, bariatric surgery, and maternity care.

The $295 million full service VA Hospital broke ground in October 2006 on a 154-acre site at the Beltway and Pecos. The 900,000 square-foot building will include a 90-bed hospital and a 120-bed nursing home and offer a full complement of diagnostic and treatment services. It will provide unprecedented access to medical care for area veterans, both young and old. The hospital is expected to open in 2011.

Excellence... is not an act but a habit. -Aristotle

Our police and fire departments embody this Greek sentiment. The philosophy is evident not just in how they perform their jobs in emergencies, but in how they serve and teach our community about citizenship, safety and responsibility.

One of our best examples is the Police Department’s G.R.E.A.T. Program. This is a school-based, six- to 13-week, officer-instructed class with gang prevention as its primary objective. G.R.E.A.T., which stands for Gang Resistence Education and Training, focuses on providing life skills to students to help them avoid using delinquent behavior and violence to solve problems. The G.R.E.A.T. Program graduates 1,200 students ages 8 to 13 each year.

Additionally, the City has brought back its McGruff Truck Program, starring McGruff the Crime Dog. As part of the program, City vehicles bearing the McGruff decal are equipped to offer emergency assistance to children. Drivers are trained to respond to children in need by assessing the problem and calling the proper authorities. Children, meanwhile, receive annual training at school assemblies and through media campaigns on how and when to seek help from McGruff trucks.

The Police Department also recognizes older citizens need training in crime prevention and self protection. Through its Senior Crime Prevention Awareness program, a day-long event at the Cannery Casino, every year about 300 senior citizens are instructed in how to recognize and avoid scams and fraud, and in how to protect themselves from becoming victims of crime. The Police Department holds a number of community events throughout the year, such as Safe Halloween and National Night Out to empower the citizenry and ensure they enjoy the safety and security they deserve.

The Fire Department this past fall, unveiled its newest educational tool intended to help kids learn about fire safety. The Sparky Fire engine is a robotic educational tool that features Sparky, the national firefighter mascot. Sparky, the engine’s driver, is remote-controlled and interactive. It can talk to adults and children about fire safety and sing songs. This addition to the Fire Department was acquired through an $8,500 grant from Walmart. Sparky is mobile and travels to special events and schools to spread the message of fire safety and prevention.

The Fire Department also is considering developing a Safety Village - a concept that could revolutionize the way we teach safety skills to our youth. This village would attract visitors regionally with its programs aimed at school-aged Valley youth, providing vital safety education in a 5/8-scale city, complete with buildings, roads and street lights. It would be only the third of its kind in the United States and designed similar to this village in Texas.

It’s about time we got a mall of our own. Plans for a future mall at the southeast corner of Craig Road and North 5th Street are moving forward. The project, recently named Desert Star, includes about 160 acres of mixed-use development with retail, restaurants, office space and condo and townhouse units.

A second mall is planned on about 130 acres near the intersection of the Northern Beltway and Losee Road, not far from the VA Hospital and the proposed UNLV Campus. The project is expected to provide mixed-use town center-type development with commercial, office and retail space in addition to 1,250 dwelling units.

Ancient Greek Philosophers believed that the goal in building a city, is the greatest happiness of the whole, not just one group or one area. (Plato paraphrase)

Although we’re proud to talk about our newest developments, the mature parts of town, indeed our foundations, are never far from our minds. Over the past year, we have made revitalization a priority, from older parks and residential neighborhoods to the traditional core of our economic engine - downtown.

The North Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency along with our Planning and Zoning Department recently contracted with a land-use consulting firm to develop a Downtown Master Plan and Investment Strategy. We will evaluate the City’s downtown components, including zoning, aesthetics, branding, retail and office demand, transportation opportunities and land use with the goal of completing a Master Plan by July of this year.

Our Redevelopment Agency estimates projects planned for the City’s downtown area will top $1 billion over the next seven to 10 years.

Just six months ago, North Las Vegas saw the successful opening of its first major redevelopment project. In June 2007, the Redevelopment Agency in partnership with the Montecito Companies, opened the Cheyenne Pointe shopping center near the intersection of Cheyenne and Civic Center Drive. The developer invested $20 million in this neighborhood shopping center, which is anchored by a Mariana’s grocery store and contains Panda Express, Starbucks, CiCi’s Pizza and other quality tenants. The agency invested $400,000 of its funds to ensure the project’s success.

The City’s effort to revitalize downtown is making strides in large part through collaboration among major investors and land owners.

I’ll just name a couple more projects we have in the planning phases.

The Redevelopment Agency is working with the Silver Nugget on its own $500 million renovation, which will bring it up to par with the newer large neighborhood casinos. The expansion will include 200 new guest rooms, on-site movie theaters and a parking garage adjacent to the existing building. The City also is planning to build a new City Hall downtown.

The Legaspi Company is developing Las Flores Shopping Center, a 400,000 square-foot commercial and retail shopping center with a Hispanic theme. The center will be built along Las Vegas Boulevard North, across from the Silver Nugget Casino.

The U.S. Census Bureau in 2007 ranked North Las Vegas the fastest growing large city in America. Families continue to make our City their community of choice for a number of reasons, including attainable housing. Recently, the City has seen its options in attainable housing grow with the Housing Authority’s sale of the Desert Mesa project. The local developer who bought the project will complete the affordable housing development and make it available to the Authority for its clients.

Despite fluctuations in the housing market nationwide, our economy continues to grow. Overall, the City’s assessed valuation in 2007, nearly $9 billion, increased 30 percent over that of 2006, and 646% over that of 1997.

Over the past year, North Las Vegas continued to see increases in its commercial permit activity. Through November 2007, the City more than doubled the commercial permit valuation of all of 2006, setting a valuation record of $529.5 million. This trend in the commercial sector is expected to continue throughout 2008.

When it comes to doing business in North Las Vegas, we have worked hard to nurture a business-friendly environment, which has sustained an average annual increase of 5.1 percent in active business licenses over the past 10 years. In 2007, North Las Vegas issued nearly 2,500 new business licenses.

North Las Vegas was one of only six cities and counties in 2007 to receive a Certificate of Achievement Award from the International City/County Management Association for its reporting of performance data to the public through budgets, newsletters and information provided to elected officials. This is the third consecutive year the City has received this award.

The City also was recognized for its fiscal management and was awarded the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award by the Government Finance Officers Association for the 2007-08 fiscal year. The award represents the highest form of recognition in government budgeting. This is the fourth consecutive year the City has received this designation.

North Las Vegas has pioneered efforts to improve the quality of budgeting and provided an excellent example to governments throughout North America.

One way in which we have proven our fiscal strength has been in our response to a decline in revenues during fiscal year 2007. The City Council proactively imposed $6.9 million in spending freezes. This included a 7% across the board cut on supplies and services as well as a hiring freeze on non-public safety positions. The 2008 General Fund budget anticipates transferring an additional $5.5 million from reserves to balance the budget.

We found leaner ways to operate and decreased the City’s employee-to-population ratio, all without layoffs and without affecting any community programs or services.

The key to our success is the valuable feedback citizens give us by participating in surveys, meetings and workshops. The results, which can been seen in the quality of life and services we provide, has led to international recognition. The City in 2007 earned ICMA’s Transformation Award for the significant improvement in its citizen satisfaction rates between 2006 and 2007 surveys.

Our residents tell us is there is increased satisfaction in libraries and parks and recreation and in customer service. They love having access to information in our community reports, town hall meetings and our open, citizen-driven planning process.

Our citizens also tell us they are conscious and concerned about living in the desert. They recognize that we must use our water wisely today so we have enough to sustain our children and grandchildren. With this in mind, our Utilities Department has joined the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Water Wise campaign to educate our residents young and old about conserving water.

Our Utilities outreach representative has visited two elementary schools a week to talk about water conservation and preserving water quality, reaching about 12,000 students from April to December 2007.

Our citizens tell us they want our City to be beautiful. One way the City is responding to this demand is by getting our youth involved early in activities that promote good stewardship of the community. The City’s Code Enforcement division runs a graffiti prevention program that involves presentations to schools from elementary to high school. Code Enforcement has forged a strong relationship with area high schools, whose students often take the lead on City beautification projects, from graffiti abatement and debris cleanup to repainting curb sides and faded address numbers in mature parts of town.

Part of a city’s beauty is its art. North Las Vegas has joined with famed artist Nicholas A. Price for a program to display works of art in public spaces across town. The partnership program in June unveiled its first exhibit in the City Hall Foyer with 14 stunning works.
The program - dubbed the Nicholas A. Price/City of North Las Vegas Community Partnership Program for Art in Public Domain - aims to provide ongoing art education and programs for at-risk youth and children with special needs.

Each year, I enjoy telling you about the City celebrations that bring us together and give us a chance to let our inner children shine.

This past year, we were delighted with the success of BalloonaPalooza II. The September balloon festival brought with it a carnival, circus and of course lots of food. Even as wind and rain grounded the hot air balloons on the first day, crowds that numbered in the tens of thousands came out throughout the weekend to enjoy the festival’s many offerings. The three-day event ended in a mass ascension of dozens of balloons that could be seen for miles. BalloonaPalooza not only brings back to North Las Vegas the color and pageantry of the City’s old signature Fairshow balloon event, it brings residents to the majestic, natural beauty of Craig Ranch, the site of the City’s premier regional park I mentioned earlier.

The City plans to continue making BalloonaPalooza an annual event that shows why North Las Vegas is a youthful community.

In addition to our ongoing summer Courtyard Concert Series and Movie Madness, we will celebrate the sixth annual Tastes & Tunes event in May, the Independence Day Jubilee in July and the 8th annual Northern Exposure 10K Run in October.

Each of these events has gotten bigger and better every year.

As we look at how North Las Vegas is a youthful community, with the highest percentage of youth in any City in Nevada, its no wonder that we continue to be the city of choice for families.

As I’ve shown you, 2007 was a successful year for the City and 2008 promises to be another banner year.

The City is led by an exceptional and visionary City Council and City management team. We thank you for your support and interest in this City, we are and will always be "Your Community of Choice" for the young, and young at heart!