How does this garden grow? Grants
CCSD getting $230,000 to support vegetable beds
Enrique Garcia has kids at Woolley Elementary screaming for broccoli.
The farmer with Garden Farms of Nevada visits the Las Vegas school once a week, tending to its five garden beds and offering students lessons on healthy food choices.
“I can get them to try everything,” Garcia said. “I have kids all over the valley eating radishes and tomatoes like they’re apples.”
Now the vegetable gardening effort will grow in more ways than one. Woolley Elementary is among 28 Clark County School District schools that received a total of $230,000 in gardening grants this year under a program approved by the Legislature in 2017. Award amounts varied
GARDENS
the fence: (company) ownership and the unions.”
‘Factional politics’
Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, called the brewing primary showdown “bad factional politics” that could hurt Democrats in the general election if a viable Republican enters the race.
“You generally never want this type of internal division from a core base like labor,” he said. “What can easily happen is regardless of who wins the primary, you don’t have a united front going forward, and the worst case is significant parts of labor sit on their hands and don’t work for a particular candidate.”
Herzik said he’s interested to see which candidate is endorsed by Nevada’s largest union, the political powerhouse Culinary Local 226.
“That one could be totally decisive,” he said.
Culinary spokeswoman Bethany Khan wrote in an email that the union is not endorsing candidates yet, but “Segerblom has always stood with working families and supported workers in their fight to have good middle-class jobs with strong protections against sexual harassment and gender/racial discrimination.”
Friend turned foe
Segerblom has gathered recognition nationwide as Nevada’s socalled godfather of marijuana, but he’s also known as a proponent for workers.
He sponsored the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which was signed into law last year, and spearheaded a failed attempt in 2015 to raise Nevada’s minimum wage.
“No one has a better labor record in the Legislature than I do,” Segerblom said.
Labor organizations donated tens of thousands of dollars to his 2016 state Senate re-election campaign, including a $2,500 donation and endorsement from Laborers Local 872. Segerblom believes he fell out of favor with the union because he voted against pledging $750 million in public funds for an NFL stadium in the Las Vegas Valley.
Laborers Local 872 is all-in for the project, calling it a job creator for Southern Nevada.
Herzik said the stadium vote has become a “political litmus test.”
“It’s almost like the merits of that vote get lost in ‘you voted against our jobs’ or ‘you voted away to give millions of tax dollars,” he said.
But Laborers Local 872 Secretary-treasurer
Tommy White said the union has many more reasons to back Hernandez.
“Tick Segerblom’s whole agenda is marijuana. He doesn’t talk about building our communities. He doesn’t talk about cleaning our communities,” White said. “Marco has a vision of what the future should hold for Maryland Parkway. Marco has a vision of what the future should hold for Clark County. Marco has a vision of what the future should hold for his district.”
Hernandez said he wants the County Commission to invest more in eastern Las Vegas, his home since 1988.
“I want to make sure I bring pride to these individuals,” he said.
New alliances
While Hernandez is a Democrat, White said Laborers Local 872 isn’t pledging allegiance to the party.
He listed seven Republican candidates for the Legislature who have the union’s support. Republican attorney Tisha Black also got the nod in her bid for the County Commission’s District F seat.
The union also is supporting incumbent Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, attorney general candidate Wes Duncan and state Sen. Michael Roberson for lieutenant governor. All are Republicans.
That is a sharp increase from 2016, when Laborers Local 872 endorsed five Republican candidates.
White said the union has found common ground with the party on the issue of job creation.
“We’re about putting people to work,” he said.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.