Sunday, June 06, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

STEVE SEBELIUS: Fun Times

Las Vegas is a sucker magnet, drawing the unwary into low-budget residence inns and feeding them at cheap hotel buffets. Its schools are hopelessly overcrowded and its traffic is dense. Its children are apt to use drugs and disobey their parents. Its women -- at least its attractive women -- are strippers or prostitutes.

But hey, even the maids can buy 2,000-square-foot houses with nice kitchens and a couple of pickup trucks.

If all you knew of Las Vegas was what you read in the nation's Newspaper of Record, that's what you'd think of Sin City from a series that ran in The New York Times last week.

We learned that life in Robert Bigelow's Budget Suites is not all that good. We learned that it's hard raising kids in town, even for a teacher at an overcrowded school. We learned that Judge Gerald Hardcastle has family problems, but that he's willing to talk about them -- at length. We learned that strippers make a lot of money, but that their lives are not so glamorous. And we learned that a one-time Mexican illegal immigrant can make a life for herself and her family in Las Vegas.

Now tell us something we don't know. Or rather, that we want to know.

Most Las Vegans reacted with typical outrage over the Times' series. Mayor Oscar Goodman correctly noted that the newspaper could have dropped into any city in America and written the same indictment. Responses were contemplated. Pride was aroused. Who are these East Coast types to drop in here and tell us what's wrong with our city?

But we should be glad they did. Because there are a host of social ills in Las Vegas that gradually fade into the background for those of us who live here, things that perhaps the eyes of outsiders are better attuned to see. For some, the dream of Las Vegas is never fulfilled, and we can lose sight of those people as we work to buy that affordable house and that pickup truck.

The No. 1 knock on outside reporters coming here and writing about it is that they rarely delve below the surface. Look at the kitschy casinos. Look at the cute little art galleries inside those casinos. Look at the red-tile roofs, stretching on to eternity. They spend a few days and think they're experts.

The Times spent much more time, and gathered a lot more information, but still proved it's possible to miss a good chunk of the story.

At the same time we read about Trixie giving tips to her fellow strippers, the Distinguished Publishing Co. was preparing to release a book featuring 25 women who have contributed greatly to Las Vegas, such as U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley; UNLV President Carol Harter; Nancy Houssels, who co-founded the Nevada Ballet Theater; state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus; Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, also a restaurateur; former Mayor Jan Jones; energy consultant Rose McKinney-James; and Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. They ain't all strippers, New York.

The weekend before we read about the dire state of public education in the valley, Sir Anthony Hopkins was addressing the Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern and Penn-bound graduates of The Meadows School, one of the valley's best private institutions.

And we read about the gritty, Steinbeckian characters who inhabit the Budget Suites, just as the local United Way began working to build -- with donated labor and materials -- the Fertitta Community Assistance Center, a retrofitted 7,000-square-foot space inside St. Vincent Plaza downtown. It will eventually bring a panoply of social services together in a single location to help the needy.

There's the Las Vegas in The New York Times story, and there's the Las Vegas that locals know, and even love.

And the thing is, they're both true.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.