The compound effect of public partnerships

Over the last several weeks, my neighborhood has been a construction zone.

You might be thinking that’s the beginning of a complaint column. But it’s just the opposite. This is actually a praise piece. Call me crazy, but I’m quite overjoyed by the orange cones, heavy equipment, hard hats, and traffic control workers. In fact, I wish I could see them more often in other neighborhoods as well.

What’s the cause of my twisted jubilation? It’s the Neighborhood Pavement Rehabilitation Program. Though not yet finished, it appears that after more than ten years of my enduring one of the bumpiest, bounciest rides in America, Bermuda Dunes Drive will finally be repaved into possibly the smoothest street this side of the Mississippi.

So far, the construction crews have just been making a bigger mess of the roads, such as digging up underground utilities and making invisible improvements that are hard to appreciate. But I’m confident that in a few short months, all of these neighborhood nuisances will finally come to an end. In my mind’s eye I can already see a beautiful new stretch of blacktop that will be the envy of every public works department in the Southwest. I know my vehicle’s shock absorbers and struts will appreciate the results immensely. And so will my mechanic and my pocketbook!

Sure, I’ll have to survive a few more weeks of detours and delays. But that’s a small price to pay for a beautiful new boulevard complete with bicycle-friendly curb cuts and utility upgrades that promise to keep our lights on for years to come.

The Neighborhood Pavement Rehabilitation Program is funded by the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) through its fuel revenue index tax initiative. The conspicuous RTC signs at each entrance to the construction zone proudly proclaim this fact, as they assuredly should.

Boulder City owes a big debt of gratitude to all of our regional partners who collaborate with us on so many worthwhile community improvement projects that we could never hope to accomplish on our own. The RTC is just one of many agencies that annually provide millions of dollars in funding for a wide variety of services and infrastructure upgrades to improve our quality of life in Boulder City. In fact, in my experience as a city councilman and mayor, our counterparts in Southern Nevada are almost always anxious to help in any way they reasonably can.

Many people either don’t know or too quickly forget that city council members do much more than just show up twice a month to city council meetings. In addition to their many other local responsibilities, they each serve on multiple regional boards and their respective subcommittees. These appointments require extensive time, energy, commitment, and extra work. But they also provide us with unparalleled opportunities to forge important relationships with other local, state and national leaders. Valuable inter-local relationships like these help shape regional policies pertaining to subjects like limited water resources, transportation, education, flood control, public health, travel and tourism, and economic development and finances. They also help us protect Boulder City’s unique interests by allowing us to take advantage of synergies, collaborative efforts and funding sources that, standing alone, would otherwise be beyond our reach.

In addition to the RTC, other important regional partners include the Clark County Regional Flood Control District, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Southern Nevada Health District, the Clark County School District, the Civilian Military Council, the Nevada League of Cities, the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, and the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance.

Our community is the fortunate beneficiary of these invaluable regional partnerships. All of Southern Nevada is an infinitely better place because of them. So, I hope you’ll join me in expressing sincere gratitude to the RTC and our many other regional partners, to our city council, and to all of their counterparts who work so hard and so well together to build relationships of trust that ultimately benefit Boulder City. Let’s also give a big round of applause to the many volunteers who are constantly spreading good will abroad to help foster collaboration. When we fall, we fall together. But most often we rise together to spectacular and otherwise unreachable heights.