The
Last Thing Laughlin Needs Is Another Black Hole for Police Resources
(June 11th 2009)
Laughlin has only recently discovered the full truth about a government funded housing project, The Vista Creek Apartments. Despite a series of misleading presentations and assertions we now know it for what it is – another black hole for police resources at the expense of millions of taxpayer dollars.
The Scam Revealed
Having interviewed former members of the Laughlin Town Advisory Board, it seems that virtually all the emphasis regarding this project during the approval phase was on the companion project next door to Vista Creek, The Vintage, which is planned for senior citizens. The remainder of the discussion generally referred to so called “family” housing. One former Board member directly asked if this would be Section 8 housing and was told no. What was not said, in what amounts to a lie by omission, is that it will be something called Section 42 housing.
In fact Vista Creek will be a restricted housing project similar to the Riverwood apartment complex in Laughlin which has for many years been the largest per capita consumer of police resources in the township. In a brief interview with Vista Creek Project Superintendent Lance Loring, he confirmed that a 30 year Land Use Restriction Agreement will be mandated by federal law requiring that the property remain restricted during that time period.
Much of this would not be of specific concern if the developer had not been so duplicitous during the entire process. Mr. Loring, in an interview with The Laughlin Times made a point of saying the project was not Section 8 housing. What the Times article missed was that this is a straw man argument. Section 8 housing has been badly mischaracterized. It is almost always tenant based, providing vouchers for use in the free market and rarely is project based. It is in fact the best housing assistance program in America today. It does not create stigmatized neighborhoods, compete against existing private housing or funnel millions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of out of state developers, in this case a Washington company. From beginning to end both the developer and Clark County government has misled and even lied to the people of Laughlin.
The Lies Compounded
At the June 9th meeting of the Laughlin Town Advisory Board, the public heard a report from Mike Pawlak, the Clark County apparatchik who runs something called the Community Resources Management Division. He gave a tidy little dissertation, complete with Power Point presentation, about how Section 8 housing was not the best way to help the less fortunate find a place to live and instead outlined the brave new world of – Public Housing Projects? That’s right, repackaged and camouflaged to look like a private development. It’s worked so well for over half a century in the heart of our great cities hasn’t it? Not to mention right here in town at the aforementioned Riverwood.
Mr. Pawlak assured the Board that quality housing equals quality tenants. This flies in the face of all reason and experience. Quality tenants are those with a stake in the community and the knowledge that the landlord will hold them to the standards of behavior of that same community. And in Laughlin our standards are very high. We have no use for the sort of disorderly behavior that crime ridden and deteriorating neighborhoods that have simply given up on having a civilized community tolerate all too often.
Mr. Pawlak further assured the Board that the state has a compliance regime to hold owners of these taxpayer funded controlled housing projects accountable for maintaining a safe and orderly environment. This would be laughable if it weren’t such a patent lie. Where was the state for over 20 years of crime and disorder in Riverwood? It is safe to assume that the state compliance regime probably has many bureaucratic forms with numerous check boxes but is otherwise an exercise in fraud, once again pretending to do something worthwhile but doing nothing or worse, tolerating absolutely unacceptable levels of police calls. When questioned, he reluctantly admitted crime will go up but adamantly denied property values will be affected, despite the basic laws of Economics – more on that lie later.
He went on to tout how with the completion of this project “you’ll have a reliable rent stock”. When questioned about the thousands of available rental units just across the river in the Tri-City area, he said “I don’t know your housing market real well”.
What?
How could even the most uneducated and ill informed person decide to build housing stock, with millions of taxpayer dollars no less, without knowing the existing housing market? Easy. You pretend that the state border is an impenetrable line and don’t take the housing on the other side of it into account for any reason.
Why?
Now that’s the $64,000.00 question. And it actually has more than one answer.
The Hidden Agenda
First is the simplest explanation. The Institutional Imperative. We exist, therefore we spend. Most public agencies don’t usually have any sort of profit metric of any sort, so they measure their effectiveness by what they spend. It’s not their money so what do they care? Secondly is a slightly more “big picture” look and one that’s also a bit more disturbing. Career public sector managers like Mr. Pawlak have, at the least, a vested interest in the expansion and validation of socialist solutions to social problems and an equal interest in denigrating and impeding free market solutions to those same problems. At the worst they have an ideological hatred of the American free market system and for many of these sorts of people, that’s what drives them to promote increasing government intervention in what used to be considered the job of private business – even if it doesn’t help or for that matter makes matters worse. They don’t care. Their left wing ideology is the all important goal that all other needs must bow to.
But it gets worse (you didn’t that was possible did you?) The Laughlin Herald has already had more than one active citizen (none of whom would speak for the record for fear of retribution) allege that a prominent goal of the Vista Creek Apartments is to skew the electoral demographics of the township by stuffing the voter rolls with hundreds of new low income voters who can be manipulated and counted on to vote for left wing candidates and causes. What better way to prevent incorporation than to frighten these new voters in to telling them that an incorporated city council would be conservative (that part at least is true) and that the free candy express will stop if they don’t vote for a leftist agenda?
Don’t Forget To Screw The Little Guy While You’re At It.
This doesn’t address the parallel issue of how the government, in cooperation with a huge corporation that specializes in feeding at the public trough, is targeting small investors, many of them senior citizens, who invested in small condominiums in Laughlin to help provide for their retirement income. Former Laughlin Justice of the Peace Tony Barbarita, who manages a portfolio of such properties for many small investors, stated that his firms’ inventory was already at record highs for vacancies. And he noted that these properties were already renting at very affordable rates. It’s also been reported to The Laughlin Herald that he had conversations with others local firms managing rental properties about any supposed need for additional rental stock and that they were in fact never contacted or interviewed. No reasonable person could see a need for this boondoggle to be built. Clearly, county government had no qualms in sending millions of taxpayer dollars to an out of state corporation at the expense of small investors here in Laughlin in order to achieve the needs of their hidden agenda.
The Bottom Line
As I said to the Laughlin Town Advisory Board on June 11th, despite the fact that this development was a bad idea plain and simple, the fact of the matter is that it’s a done deal. It’s going to be built and nothing will change that. What we have to do now is insist that the Board and its Public Safety Committee address and plan for the unquestioned drain on police resources that this unwanted project will burden our township with.
We welcome the public’s feedback. Please send your Letters To The Editor to editor@laughlinherald.com
