Seaman says Las Vegas City Council was wrong on Badlands

The Las Vegas City Council erred by preventing development at the Badlands Golf Course. HOV lanes should be open to all vehicles. Current city restrictions on short-term rentals should stay in place. That’s all according to Victoria Seaman, candidate for the Ward 2 seat on the Las Vegas City Council.

“It’s in the courts. I think the next time the city council will actually be faced with Badlands, is [to decide] how much they’re going to write the check to the developer — which is Yohan Lowie — for,” Seaman said while filming Nevada Politics Today. “Because I don’t believe the developer would have bought the property if he didn’t have permission to build on it.

“This should have been settled by the city council. That is the city council’s job — to work with everybody and find a solution. It didn’t happen. It’s in the courts. It shouldn’t be in the courts.”

Since Lowie has filed several lawsuits, Seaman said the city council would have to wait and see if he’d be willing to drop the lawsuits if he was allowed to develop.

That’s not the only problem Seaman sees private businesses having in the city.

“One of the things that government does is that they’re very quick to tax, regulate and shut your business down,” she said. “I’ve seen it. What we need to do is change our attitude and help businesses succeed. They’re the key to job creation. They’re the key to our economic development. Why aren’t we doing that?”

Seaman said the city should provide onsite consulting and help navigating the regulatory process.

On her website, Seaman says the No. 1 issue facing city residents is crime.

“I live in a housing community,” she said. “My neighbor is Sheriff Joe Lombardo and we were hit six times with burglaries in September. So, we had targeted hot spots. We have the technology to target hot spots. We need to make sure that’s what Metro is doing.”

She also wants to hold community townhalls and increasing funding for police. That won’t require raising taxes she said, because “if we stop trying to shut businesses out and start helping them to succeed that brings in more revenue.”

The Nevada Department of Transportation announced recently that the HOV lanes on the US-95 will soon be restricted to high occupancy vehicles for the entire day. Seaman opposes that plan.

“HOV lanes were created for clean air quality, using less fuel, [less] wear and tear on the car,” she said. “None of that is happening. None of that is true. What we see is cars idling on the freeway and a free lane that no one is using.

She continued, “There is no reason that we should be having an HOV lane 24/7. I think and constituents of Ward 2 [agree] — we’ve had this big discussion about it — let everybody use the lanes they pay for. It’s not giving us clean air. It’s not saving fuel.”

Seaman expressed support for current restrictions on home rental platforms like Airbnb.

“Ordinances that are in place need to stay in place for now — until we can see how the Ward feels about it,” Seaman said. “I think a lot of bad actors in party houses have given Airbnb and short-term rentals a bad name.”