F Street re-opened

Las Vegas Councilman Bob Coffin didn't make any friends last week when he cast the lone vote against re-opening F Street, the only direct link from historic West Las Vegas into the gleaming new downtown.

The vote -- and Coffin's advocacy against spending $8.5 million in city funds to re-open the street -- was all the more confusing because of the fact that he'd voted as a state senator in 2009 to require the city to re-open the street.

Another politician flip-flopping? No, there's much more to this story than that.

After West Las Vegas residents objected to closing F Street in 2008, blame ricocheted from City Hall to Carson City. Nevada Department of Transportation Director Susan Martinovich told the 2009 Legislature the city had requested the closure as part of the Interstate 15 widening project. (Closing the street would save the cost of building a bridge.)

But Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow -- then an aide to former Councilman Lawrence Weekly -- said he'd not known about plans to close the street until it was done. And West Las Vegas residents didn't know either; notices referred to the overall I-15 widening project without highlighting the permanent street closure.

That's when state Sen. Steven Horsford stepped in, offering an amendment to a bill Coffin had co-sponsored, an amendment that required the city and the state to work together to re-open F Street. Coffin agreed to the amendment, in part because Horsford asserted that notice given to nearby residents wasn't adequate, and didn't comply with Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act.

(Martinovich, in testimony on the amendment on May 8, 2009, said her department had published notices, but "she said NDOT could have done a better job of notifying residents. The federal requirements were followed." Clearly, Horsford disagreed.)

The bill passed, with Coffin's support, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Jim Gibbons, who argued that adequate notice had been given. In remarks on the Senate floor, Horsford pointed out that a pending lawsuit could leave the city and the state liable to open the road, anyway. He noted the "emotional" costs of the closure, saying it "recalls an era when West Las Vegas was intentionally isolated for purposes of segregation."

Coffin voted for the veto override, and the bill became law.

But now, nearly three years later, Councilman Coffin looked at the issue anew. Now, he says, he believes notice was adequate, and that Horsford was wrong. "I apologized to the whole council [for the 2009 votes]," Coffin said. "I said I was fooled once, and I will not be fooled again.

"They lied to me," Coffin added. "I don't think an injustice was done."

Horsford has not changed his stance: He says residents didn't realize what would be done to F Street, and that a federal lawsuit over Title 6 could easily be re-initiated, a lawsuit he thinks the city and state would lose.

As for lying to his former colleague, Horsford says, "It did not happen."

In Coffin's defense, this isn't a case where a politician is trying to get out of a jam. In fact, Coffin jumped into a jam by opposing the re-opening (angering West Las Vegas residents) and accusing his former colleague Horsford, now running for Congress. If Coffin doesn't really believe what he's saying, his actions make no sense.

(On Wednesday, the council voted 5-1, with Coffin dissenting, to re-open the street.)

But there's also no separating this issue from the troubled racial past of the area. In any other neighborhood, closing a street might be an inconvenience. But physically separating Las Vegas' traditionally black neighborhood -- which has seen far too little help from the city's vaunted redevelopment efforts -- from the vitality of the new downtown? That's an insult atop decades of injuries.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.