Keep F Street open

On Monday evening at the West Las Vegas Library, leaders of the local African-American community gathered to talk strategy concerning the impending closure of F Street at Bonanza Road.

The old guard, including ministers, politicians and activists, was joined by a sprinkling of new faces. Although those in attendance came from all walks of life, they expressed an emboldening unity of purpose: F Street must remain open.

To get the message across, the group plans to march from F Street to City Hall on Wednesday morning. They plan to file into the City Council chambers to let their elected representatives know what they think.

It's an old-fashioned response to an old-fashioned problem.

Transportation engineers may see the F Street closure as a prudent measure to control traffic flow, but they have a myopic view of the big picture. Closing F Street sends a clear message to West Las Vegas residents that segregation is alive and well in the city once dubbed "the Mississippi of the West."

In short, the F Street fiasco is a case of tone-deaf politics, a gaffe that dredges up a bitter history riddled with examples of neglect and segregation of the black community.

Black activists have hired longtime local attorney Matthew Callister, who has filed suit to stop the closure. Callister, a former city councilman, is not tilting at windmills here. He believes the residents are on the right side of history -- and the law.

"They want to wall off the Westside and pretend it doesn't exist," Callister said. "This is a battle that goes back to the 1930s."

The F Street closure is far from the first time the city has tried to isolate the neighborhood. In the 1960s, the city closed D, F and H streets, creating what West Las Vegas residents called an "Iron Curtain" separating their neighborhood from the rest of the city. After a march on City Hall, the streets were reopened.

In the late 1960s, Interstate 15 was planned without any off-ramps into West Las Vegas. Residents protested and the D Street exit was created. A similar scenario played out when U.S. Highway 95 was constructed.

Of course, these were relatively minor issues compared with other civil rights battles waged in Las Vegas. In 1939, as West Las Vegas expanded, residents living nearby petitioned the city to pass an ordinance creating whites-only neighborhoods. Black activists protested, and the council rejected the segregation measure.

The next and most famous civil rights battle was to integrate the hotels. A long fight for open housing followed, and that segued into a heated and litigious struggle for school integration.

"We are turning over the same ground we did 40 years ago," said Gene Collins, a former state assemblyman and president of the National Action Network's Las Vegas branch.

For the Rev. Jesse Scott, a former NAACP branch president, the closure of F Street is the latest maneuver to prevent West Las Vegas from prospering economically. The city has $6 billion worth of development under way just down the street in Union Park. Scott sees the potential for West Las Vegas to enjoy some peripheral benefits from this downtown renaissance. The F Street closure would all but kill those opportunities.

What also riles West Las Vegas activists is they didn't learn about the F Street closure until it was already happening. Government agencies -- neglectfully or on purpose -- did a horrible job of publicizing the plans and soliciting neighborhood input.

"What happened is we saw a bulldozer on F Street," said Trish Geran, an author and activist. "We didn't know what was going on."

Initially, residents thought it was a temporary closure associated with work on the adjacent Interstate 15 widening project. But a little investigating revealed the city's true intentions. Officials insist the F Street closure will help the neighborhood by eliminating "cut-through traffic" on a relatively narrow street. But in this metropolis, where traffic congestion is a significant problem, how does eliminating a thoroughfare make things better?

"We need more access points, not less," Callister said.

At a public meeting on the F Street issue in October, neighborhood activist Deborah Jackson articulated the community's frustrations. "This community has always been shut out," she said. "I've always said we were kind of like a black hole, we just kind of exist. But we are part of Las Vegas."

Traffic engineers probably don't want to hear it, but history, politics and culture all come into play when you build a city. Closing F Street might have looked like a clever thing to do on paper, but to the residents, business owners and religious leaders of West Las Vegas, it looks like segregation.

Opening F Street at this point will cost additional time and money to rejigger the I-15 widening plan. But right is right -- and a mistake must be corrected. Echoing the words of President Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, I say to the city of Las Vegas: Tear down this wall!

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is publisher of Las Vegas CityLife, owned by the same company as the Review-Journal. His column appears Friday.