Democrat Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Coffin has come out opposed to wasting $8.5 million to reopen the little-used, non-essential F Street underpass below I-15 simply to mollify a vocal minority constituency that got its widdle feelwings hurt when it was walled off as part of a major highway improvement project several years ago.
Indeed, even one of the chief activists pushing for the reopening admits it has nothing really to do with the ability of the community to reach downtown Las Vegas. “F Street is really not necessarily about just a reopening,” neighborhood activist Trish Geran told the Las Vegas Reveiew-Journal. “It is about a symbolic change of fairness and justice.”
$8.5 million in a down economy for “a symbolic change of fairness and justice”? I don’t think so. Why not buy some schoolbooks for the neighborhood’s minority children instead?
Oh, and get this: It turns out Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford didn’t tell the truth when he demanded that F Street be reopened because the residents supposedly weren’t given sufficient notice about the planned closure. So good for Councilman Coffin for having the stones to stand up for Nevada taxpayers and just say “no.”
Alas, his colleagues voted 5-1 to waste the money on Wednesday anyway.
