Goodman talks deadly Las Vegas fire, city projects in annual address

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said Thursday, following an annual speech where she promoted major economic development victories in the city, that she acted quickly following the December fire that killed six people at a downtown apartment complex.

Speaking to reporters after the annual State of the City address, Goodman said she requested information about the Alpine Motel Apartments’ owner and city rules that would prevent a similar tragedy from occurring.

Goodman said she immediately sought to discover what happened, what officials knew and what they believed needed to occur next.

The mayor said she was out of the country when the blaze broke out at the three-story Alpine on Dec. 21. Upon returning to the city, she said, she convened a meeting of more than a dozen city officials.

“We immediately began looking at data,” she said, later adding: “We’re looking at it with a fine-toothed comb.”

Goodman told reporters she asked for information about the property’s owner, Las Vegas Dragon Hotel LLC, and how many other properties it owned in Las Vegas. If it held other properties outside the city, Goodman said, she requested those municipalities be alerted.

She added that she had not yet received the report on what the review of the owner’s other properties revealed. Noting how there were “so many parts” to what occurred, she called the loss of life “horrible” and a “tragedy” and said the city remains intent on putting “health and safety first.”

The day following the fire, which also injured 13 people, city fire inspectors cited the property for 16 code violations, including bolting shut an exit door and not having all the required smoke detectors. Las Vegas police detectives are conducting a criminal probe into the fire.

‘Back to the Future’

The theme of Thursday evening’s address was “Back to the Future,” and Goodman preferred to look ahead: “I assure you the past has nothing on what we have planned for 2020.”

In the first State of the City address of her final term, she rattled off a long catalog of projects recently finished or still underway to underscore that economic development is booming across key industries, including hospitality, arts, technology, government, transportation and sports.

A $56 million municipal courthouse is under construction, new residential properties are coming to Symphony Park and the Arts District and talks are underway on a deal to build a soccer stadium near Cashman Field that could also bring a Major Leage Soccer expansion franchise.

A 315,000-square-foot trade show center at Symphony Park is expected to open this summer. And the 777-room Circa hotel — a project unveiled at the conclusion of last year’s address — is slated to open by the end of the year.

“If all of this hasn’t made it clear that this city is hot and with huge future,” she said, “I’ve just been informed that this week, and the past few weeks, we have had 25 projects just in the Arts District pulling permits for new business right in that area.”

Defense of camping ban

Excluding the long review of economic development wins over the past year, Goodman spent more time speaking about homelessness than any other issue Thursday.

The crisis was underscored late last year when the City Council voted 5-2 to pass a controversial, though not unique, ban on camping in public rights of way downtown and in residential areas throughout the city.

Saying officials were undertaking a “humanitarian and compassionate” effort to assist the city’s homeless, Goodman defended the ban, as she has consistently done before. She rejected criticism that city policy criminalizes homelessness, and she cast it as a method to ensure people seek available help while protecting public health.

Outside City Hall, homeless advocates protested before the speech, holding signs with messages like “No Homeless Ban” and “Homeless Does Not Mean Rightless.” However, Goodman said the response from the public has been “extraordinarily positive.”

The $20 million expansion of the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center is expected to be completed in late 2021. But even then, it will only be able to serve more than 800 people at a time, Goodman acknowledged, a fraction of the 6,000 homeless in the county.

Four goals

The State of the City address was also notable because it comes a year after Goodman announced she had been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. She recalled on Thursday the anxiety and fear of finding out, but she assured victoriously that she would finish her term.

Goodman’s doctor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in October that chemotherapy worked “tremendously well, and there was no sign of cancer left.” Her treatment ended in August, but she’ll continue to have checkups over the next few years.

Goodman ended her speech by pointing to four “critical” issues that she pledged to undertake over the next five years: opposing transportation of radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain; advocating for the Nevada Legislature to meet yearly; supporting higher Medicaid reimbursement rates for physicians; and backing the widening of Interstate 15 from Barstow, California, to the state line.

“Wait until the Raiders come,” she said. “That logjam is simply incredible.”

Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.