LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – FOX5 continues our coverage of a North Las Vegas neighborhood literally sinking into the ground. Neighbors in Windsor Park are demanding a lifeline as homes there are slowly swallowed by unstable earth.
Now, one lawmaker wants to give them one and is behind Senate Bill 450, which would allocate tens of millions of dollars.
“I am not playing any games anymore and I’m tired and all I want to do is serve families, all I want to do is help these 90 families who are living with asbestos,” Sen. Dina Neal said with frustration evident in her voice during a hearing introducing her bill.
Neal believes there is something very wrong going on in Windsor Park, and it is not just the sinking land people live on. The houses, built in the 60′s, started to sink in the early 80′s and federal money was set aside for residents to relocate.
“Their money was not supposed to be touched. It was supposed to be kept in trust by the city and only used for the assistance of those families,” Neal stated.
Neal scrutinized thousands of pages of records to follow the money.
“When I checked eight years of budgets, public budgets, City of North Las Vegas budgets… from 2015 to 2023, it showed that there had been money expended every year from the Windsor Park budget,” Neal shared.
According to Neal, it’s unclear how that money was spent. Neal also learned people were allowed to buy homes in the neighborhood that has been sinking for 30 years as recently as 2019.
“They are Latino families that had no idea the 30-year history and so some realtor took advantage of them,” Neal asserted.
“As a preliminary matter, please note that the city has approximately $2.5 million left in the Windsor Park funds. That amount has been basically unchanged in the last 8 years,” responded City of North Las Vegas Finance Director William Hardy disputing Neal’s findings.
Hardy contended only a quarter million dollars of Windsor Park funds have been spent since 2015.
“They are budgeted numbers, they are not actual expenditures… We can account for every dollar that has been contributed by the Feds, by the state or the city,” Hardy explained.
Neal said regardless of what happened with previously allocated funding, much more is needed to move the last 90 families out of Windsor Park. Her bill asks for $10 million from the state and $20 million from the City of North Las Vegas to get finally get it done.
The bill would allow affected residents to exchange their damaged homes for a newly constructed residence adjacent to Windsor Park. Neal said ideally to another location owned by North Las Vegas.
Copyright 2023 KVVU. All rights reserved.
