Councilwoman wants to bolster NLV’s image as a true city

Anita G. Wood has been a resident of Clark County since 1971. She was re-elected to a second term in April 2013 to represent Ward 3.

As a former stay-at-home mom and project administrator for Premier Mechanical, she admits that prior to joining the political arena, she didn't know much about city council or how it worked.

Her political journey started in 1995 after she and some neighbors led the five-year movement that ultimately resulted in the North Las Vegas City Council changing its zoning ordinances to prohibit resolutions of intent.

After finding a passion for civic involvement, Wood became an active voice in North Las Vegas, representing the city as a member of the Southern Nevada District Board of Health, the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition and Workforce Connections. She also sits as vice-chairwoman of the Local Elected Officials Consortium and as a member of the Nevada Governor's Clean Energy Sector Council.

Prior to her election, Wood served on the North Las Vegas Citizens' Advisory Committee, Utility Advisory Board and Planning Commission.

She also has served on the board of directors for Neighborhood Housing Services of Southern Nevada and Friends of the North Las Vegas Library District.

She is a graduate of the North Las Vegas Police Department Citizens' Academy and is a member of the Citizens' Police Academy Alumni North.

View recently sat down with Wood for a question-and-answer session.

You were first elected to the council in 2009. How did your political career get its start? What made you want to run?

My husband and I bought a home in North Las Vegas in December of 1993. When we bought our home, the area behind it was vacant, empty land. We were told we were going to have a park behind our house. A year and a half after we moved, we found the park was only about 5 acres. I started doing research and contacted people at the city and found out that the rest of the land was intended for a two-story apartment at 18 units per acre. It wasn't disclosed to us. My husband and I were not happy. We became community leaders for our neighbors and started attending city council planning commission to find out how we could fix it. We ended up spending the next five years fighting on and off. Eventually, the land was purchased by the city and Clark County, and it became the Silver Mesa Recreation Center.

As a longtime Las Vegas Valley resident, how have you seen North Las Vegas change over the years?

When I was a kid in high school, you didn't come to North Las Vegas. It had the reputation of not being safe, which is really not true today. Back in the '80s, we had a very small population of probably 20,000 to 30,000 people. Today, we rival any city, and it's become a wonderful place to live.

North Las Vegas is a big city, but you still have a small-town feel. None of us (councilmembers) are fancy, and we're not hard to find or meet. You don't necessarily get that in a big city like Las Vegas or Henderson.

What issues have you brought to the table as Ward 3 Councilwoman?

Since 2009, the issues have been endless. Working with the city through the economic recession was the first challenge. At first, it was just about getting us through those first couple of years. It was really, really tough. You don't want to be elected to city council in order to lay people off. It's very hard and difficult to have to do that, but my job has also been very rewarding despite its challenges.

Right now, the big thing I'm working on is our Squatter Foreclosure Task Force. A lot of banks that have foreclosed on homes are just letting them sit there for a long time, for up to two years. People are now moving in, and it's something that our police department was not equipped to handle initially. It was very frustrating for residents.

Squatters have become very brilliant, too, because it doesn't take much to go up to a website and pull up the county assessor to find out who the owner is. They're able to pull up a lease and sign it. It may be a fake signature, but there's no way of knowing if it's a real or forged lease (until you contact the owner).

We have put a task force together, and now we're sharing information between different departments. One of the things we have done is started a foreclosed registry that now requires banks to register homes with the city, so we know when these homes are in foreclosure. We're sharing that information, which code enforcement had, with both the police department and with our utilities department.

I'm also serving as president for the Nevada League of Cities & Municipalities. I was representing the league this morning for the mayor's challenge to end veteran homelessness. That's certainly important.

I've also been doing quite a bit with the health district. We are the only city in the valley that does not have a clinic within its boundaries, so I've been fighting with them to get a clinic back here.

Right now, we're working on dealing with the results of the recession. I've had problems in Aliante where you had a subdivision that was only maybe half done because the developer went under, and now you have a new developer coming in and wanting to change the product line.

So I'm working with the new developers to see how do we get this product built out and still have a good product for the residents and have it looking like a community and not like three different subdivisions all thrown together.

I've been working on everything from the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument to the Villages at Tule Springs. At some point, we're going to need a museum and visitor's center. There's still a lot of planning as to what the national monument is going to look like.

What is the biggest issue that Ward 3 faces, and as Ward 3 councilwoman, what do you plan to do about the issue?

The biggest complaint I hear is about our lack of commercial diversity.

I'm preparing to go to the International Council of Shopping Centers, which is a big global convention. I want to make an effort to reach out to businesses. We're trying to see what we can do to entice businesses to come here and remind companies that North Las Vegas is here and it's a great investment.

We're really doing pretty well in Ward 3. Growth has started up again, and the subdivisions that were half-completed are getting done slowly but surely. We're finally getting to go to new grand openings, so things are going pretty well.

What are some of the top concerns of Ward 3 residents?

Residents really want a greater diversity of commercial development. Right now, in order to have dinner, more often than not, you have to leave the city. It's 2015, and we still don't have a Red Lobster or Olive Garden. We were told it all depends on the number of rooftops we have, but today, we're rivaling Reno for being the third-largest city in the state.

We're not like a small, rinky dink city, so we shouldn't be having this problem. People want restaurants, a mall and better shopping opportunities.

Are there any city issues that you feel could have been handled better by the city council? How so?

Nobody's perfect, and what you see as being a concern may very well be valid, but the economy can take it. You just never know. When I was on the planning commission, I voted against Buffalo Wild Wings because I started noticing a large trend of bars along Craig Road. I see now that it's a great asset, and everyone loves it. Maybe I was a little too harsh on that one. Another time, I turned down a high school because it was in a large industrial area, but now I see that Canyon Ridge has done well.

Sometimes I'm more cautious than I should be, but on other hand, you have to be willing to take a chance, too.

How would you balance the needs of Ward 3 with the needs of the larger city?

It is a challenge in North Las Vegas because you almost have three different cities, but you just have to realize that whatever you do for Ward 1 or 2 will benefit Ward 3 in the long run, which usually benefits the whole city in general.

We may have three very different areas, but we are still a united city.

What are your visions for the future of Ward 3 in 2016? What type of changes would you like to see happen?

What I'd really like to see is the economy keep improving enough for us to get back to where we were. We're still severely understaffed and not able to provide top service for our residents. In 2009, we used to have 2,200 (city employees); now, we're down to about 1,200. Laying off so many people and encouraging them to retire early has left many people doing two or three jobs.

We're slowly working on rehiring people, but we don't want to bring them in too fast for the economy because we don't want to do more layoffs. Hopefully, 2016 continues to give us that advantage and security that we haven't had in a while.

Right now, we're bringing in new industries, and we have big things planned. The city is set to bring in some major jobs.

North Las Vegas has a stigma attached to it. What have you done as the Ward 3 councilwoman to eliminate North Las Vegas' negative image?

I correct people all of the time. A lot of them call it "Nortown" as opposed to North Las Vegas because Nortown is that image of what it used to be. I do remind people that that's not the case anymore. There's certainly that perspective from the past, but that was so long ago, and now we're a great city. I think people that drive through it today see that and realize it.

I've had so many people say to me, "Oh, we moved here from back East, and I had no idea about North Las Vegas' reputation, but we don't understand it because we've never had a problem. We think North Las Vegas is great, and we love living here."

We've just worked really hard to restore its image. I think the new city hall is part of that revamping, and, of course, Craig Ranch Regional Park and the amphitheater have contributed to bringing people here and showcasing what a beautiful city we have. Really, it's just about getting people out here to see that there's nothing to be afraid of or to worry about. No city is perfect, but on the other hand, we are a good city, and we have a good community of people that care about each other and take care of each other.

Part of the problem with the economic decline was that we lost a lot of homeownership, and now that's coming back. Along with the new homeowners, we have that sense of community.

We have neighbors becoming friends, and kids growing up together. It's wonderful.

Anything else you'd like residents to know?

We're working hard, and some stuff just takes a little bit of time. I always have to explain to people that the economy crashed so quickly and the recovery takes so long. We're working hard here every day to make things happen. It takes a while because we're a big ship, but brighter days are yet to come.

— To reach North View reporter Sandy Lopez, email slopez@viewnews.com or call 702-383-4686. Find her on Twitter: @JournalismSandy