LETTERS: State needs to step up, support Uber

To the editor:

For years, we have been working hard to attract businesses and uplift workers with established roots in our community. After a harsh recession, businesses are finally starting to see signs of growth, and folks want to invest in Nevada again. Nowhere is this more visible than downtown Las Vegas, where businesses large and small are starting to pop up.

Yet getting to and from downtown is not always easy, given that our taxi industry continues to focus on the Strip. Uber, with its smartphone app that makes it easier and cheaper for people to get around cities, is just the kind of company we were excited to welcome into our community.

In a little over a month, we saw how this simple app was starting to transform our city by connecting people from all over the valley. You could actually get a ride from North Las Vegas to Summerlin or from Henderson to downtown. With Las Vegas just coming out from very tough times, Uber proved in just a few weeks that it could help create thousands of jobs here and tackle the longstanding transportation problem for Las Vegans who don’t live in the resort corridor. People were enjoying all of that our city has to offer.

So it’s almost unbelievable that after tackling some of the most pervasive issues in Nevada — lack of jobs and transportation choices — this company would be so unceremoniously shut out. As a downtown business owner and a proud Las Vegas resident, I join the many calling on our state leaders to step up and rescue the thousands of jobs that were lost when the app was turned off, and get Las Vegas back on the right track.

MARC ABELMAN

LAS VEGAS