The relationship between Clark County and the City of Las Vegas can be described as a sibling rivalry. The older sibling (Clark County) is constantly reminding the younger one (City of Las Vegas) of their second-place status. They’re constantly trying to one-up each other while vying for the title of favorite child. (“You have a Key to the City? Well, I have the Key to the Strip!”) They even blame one another when the household chores aren’t done.

“You’ll often hear anecdotal stories about ‘Oh, that traffic light is not in the county. Call the city.’ So that sort of back and forth is confusing to a citizen, because their postal address says Las Vegas, but they actually may not live in Las Vegas. I think that creates a tension there,” says David Damore, executive director of the Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West.

Residents depend on their local governments for more than just broken traffic lights. Local jurisdictions are supposed to work together on issues such as animal control, homelessness, infrastructure and public safety.

The city-county relationship we see today is partly the result of the leadership of the outgoing Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her husband and predecessor, Oscar. The couple’s 25 years in office—Carolyn with 13 years and Oscar with 12—has seen great economic development and many accomplishments. Their tenure has also marked a period of dysfunction, at times, between regional governments.

Take Mayor Carolyn Goodman’s response to stay-at-home orders in the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in Southern Nevada. While county commissioners were adhering to the governor’s and public health officials’ guidance to close businesses, Goodman went on CNN and volunteered the city as a “control group” to test whether it was safe to reopen.

There’s also the city’s and county’s disparate responses to homelessness. The city in 2019 passed an ordinance that made it a misdemeanor to camp on public sidewalks if there were spots available at the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center or at shelters–a policy that was publicly condemned by county commissioners.

Now with the mayoral election—where former Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, Las Vegas Councilman Cedric Crear, Las Vegas Councilwoman Victoria Seaman and Nevada Equal Rights Commission administrator Kara Jenkins have emerged as the frontrunners—there’s an opportunity to change that rivalry to a dynamic of greater cooperation. A lot of that cooperation hinges on “informal conversations,” Damore says.

“We don’t have a council of governments, [whereas] you see this in a lot of the big municipalities—you’re able to find this common ground and think about regional-based approaches to economic development, homelessness, housing. We just don’t have that formal organization,” Damore says.

In Nevada, mayors’ authority is limited. His or her vote counts the same as everybody else’s on the city council. It takes charisma and consensus-building to push the city’s interests forward in the wider landscape of regional governments.

To their credit, the Goodmans have demonstrated that mayoral influence can extend far beyond their formal powers. It can permeate public opinion and drive development. Whenever Mayor Carolyn Goodman says anything about the I-15 corridor between California and Las Vegas, or about the Oakland A’s, news outlets pick it up, and Las Vegans and the nation take note. And the completion of the Smith Center for Performing Arts and designation of the Las Vegas Medical District happened on the Goodmans’ watch.

“[The Goodmans] have been cheerleaders for our Valley. They’ve become a point of contact for the media … And I think because they’re so well-known here and have such strong ties to the city, that all facilitated the elevation, at least in the public eye, of the mayorship,” Damore says.

For better or worse, the new mayor of Las Vegas will likely inherit the role of spokesperson for the entire Valley. Moreover, the new mayor has an opportunity to coordinate with Clark County and the other cities—Boulder City, Henderson and North Las Vegas—that make up the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

He or she also will inherit economic development projects, including the growing Medical District and Mayor Goodman’s nascent, tech-focused “Innovation District.”

“And they’ll have to deal with limited land,” Damore says. “I think the new mayor faces a lot of challenges because they’re out of land … whereas Henderson and North Las Vegas still have space to grow. That’s really not the case for the City of Las Vegas.

“And can they really stand up the Medical District and realize the potential that I think a lot of people hope to see … That would be a way they could boost the economy and get more jobs. I know there’s a lot of hope to get investment for some of the ancillary services that would support the health economy in that space.” 

These challenges only underline the importance of working with Clark County, whose jurisdictions overlap with the city. Ultimately, the mayor of Las Vegas’ responsibility remains his or her 650,000 constituents, and making the city work for them. And that necessitates being in step with other regional governments on issues that bleed over jurisdictional boundaries, for the sake of all the Valley’s residents.

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