A one-on-one interview with Las Vegas Mayor-elect Shelley Berkley.

Plus... -My view, we are going to see above-trend growth.

So forget the soft landing.

We're going to see a launch landing.

-What economists are forecasting for the country and Southern Nevada.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

And on December 4 is when Shelley Berkley will be sworn in as the new mayor of Las Vegas.

It will mark the former congresswoman's first return to political office since 2013, and it will mark the first time in 25 years that Las Vegas has not had a mayor with the last name Goodman.

Berkley takes the position as the city grapples with costly lawsuits and joins us now to talk about that and more.

Shelley Berkley, Mayor-elect of the City of Las Vegas, welcome to Nevada Week.

(Shelley Berkley) Thank you, and it's great to see you again.

It's been a while.

-It has been.

I'm happy to have you back.

People should watch the Nevada Week In Person interview we did.

This is the first time here on the show, at least with me.

Those lawsuits, the City is reportedly on the hook for up to $650 million.

There are talks, though, of a settlement somewhere in the range of $250- $260 million.

What is your level of confidence that there will be a settlement reached and when?

-There will be a settlement reached, because the City does not have an alternative.

So I think it is very important to get this very dark episode behind us so we could move forward.

It is not easy.

We're not there yet.

Hopefully, we will be before the end of the year.

We must be, in my opinion.

-Why?

-Well, we don't know how much money that we will have to spend on the people that call the city of Las Vegas home.

We are dealing with taxpayer money to satisfy a number of judgments that have gone against the City.

We also will, no matter what, if it's at the high end of the negotiations or the low end of the negotiations, it's a substantial chunk of change, and the city is going to take a serious hit.

And that means that the people, the taxpayers of the city of Las Vegas, are taking a serious hit.

-December 18 is the meeting when this could potentially next be discussed.

Do you think it will be taken care of then?

-I would hope so.

That gives the City almost a month to finally reach a-- to reach a final agreement.

And I am-- during my campaign, I talked about the necessity of settling this as quickly as possible.

Again, I'll take the hit.

It's not easy for any elected official to have to vote to satisfy a judgment of this magnitude, but I think it is imperative that we do so.

We must.

-No matter what the amount ends up being, how is the City going to pay for this?

How is the City already trying to pay for this?

-A number of ways.

We do have reserves.

And I think with my background and experience, I could help navigate this.

Very, very dark waters, but we'll do it.

We'll move forward.

I think our best years are ahead of us, but it doesn't make too much more sense to prolong this.

It's been going on for nine years.

Full disclosure, I live in Queensridge, so I've been a part of this from the beginning.

It's time to wrap it up.

-For those who are unfamiliar with the situation, it was Badlands Golf Course, bought by a developer, wanted to build a housing project.

Neighbors opposed it.

Then zoning came into play, and the City said, No, you can't.

And then this developer argues, You took that land from me, now I'm suing you, and here we are.

-And let me, let me add some additional facts to this.

The golf course, the Badlands-- and by the way, the golf course clubhouse is where I had my engagement party 27 years ago.

So I'm very familiar with that area.

It was zoned-- the golf course was zoned residential.

The developer purchased the property knowing it was zoned residential.

His project got unanimous approval from the Planning Commission, and it was stopped, in my opinion, for very political reasons by the City Council.

We are now paying a very hefty price for some very bad decisions that were made earlier.

-What is the interest that the City is paying?

-I misspoke when I--you and I were talking about this earlier.

When I was running for office, I was talking about the fact that the City is paying $20,000 a day in interest.

That is not the case.

-On the judgment.

-On the judgments.

The reality is we are paying closer to $130,000 a day in interest.

Right now, interest is stayed; interest is in abeyance for the next 30 days to reach an agreement with the developer.

So the developer said, Look, don't pay me for the next month the interest you owe me.

Although, I could live very well on $130,000 a day.

So I think it's incumbent upon the City to reach a resolution.

My job is to protect the taxpayers of the city of Las Vegas.

That's your job as mayor; you're protecting the city.

But you also have to factor in what is the possibility of additional losses being racked up if we continue, continue fighting this.

And it doesn't seem to make much sense.

There hasn't been a court decision in favor of the City since the beginning.

-Okay.

And so hiring freezes are in place in anticipation of all this money having to be paid-- or, well, there is already money owed.

Also, Cashman Field was put up for auction.

-Yes, it was.

-And you said that this was in an attempt to begin earning money to pay them, because I hadn't seen that reported anywhere else except when you told Tricia Kean at Channel 13 that.

-They put out, for lack of a better word, RFP for people to bid on Cashman, hoping that they would get a good price.

And we should.

It's a great piece of property with no encumbrances.

We were-- this is-- obviously, I'm not in office yet.

I'm not the mayor yet, but they were hoping for a robust auction.

And as it turned out, nobody bid on the property.

And so hopefully they can restructure the RFP to make it more amenable to developers bidding on this property.

Prime piece of property.

It will change that whole area, whether it's affordable housing, whether it's a hospital.

There's a lot of uses for Cashman, but somebody's got to bid on that property.

And hopefully we'll, we'll get-- I think right now, a minimum bid is, and I might be mistaken, but about 30, 35 million.

If we could get more than that, that would be very helpful.

-So the City is selling off assets at this point?

-It pains me.

I don't want to sell off any city assets, but that may happen in order to help satisfy this judgment.

Look, we have to ensure-- and the number one issue is public safety.

We have to make sure that Metro has all of the resources they need to do the job that we have tasked them with, which is keeping all of us safe.

Also our fire department, we need to ensure that they have enough personnel and state-of-the-art equipment to help protect us, which is what we have tasked them with.

So those are our priorities.

But then there's so much else that the City does, grants and other things that we spend our taxpayer money on, that we're going to have to figure out what we can cut without really doing damage to the city.

And remember, we are a growth city.

This is a city that is continuing to grow, and unfortunately, I believe we'll be cutting services for the foreseeable future.

However, long-term, City of Las Vegas is hot as a pistol.

All of Southern Nevada is.

I think our best years are coming, and the next 10 years are going to be explosive.

-What services make most sense to cut first?

-I don't know yet.

I think the first one and the most obvious was a hiring freeze and not replay-- it's not only hiring new people, it's making-- if somebody resigns or quits, that you don't fill that position.

And salaries dominate almost every budget.

So that's, that is a cost savings.

There are reserved-- it will be a combination of things to satisfy the judgment.

But right now, the priority, at least for me, what's the number?

What is the judgment that we have to satisfy before we start cutting or doing anything else?

-You brought up public safety.

Does this mean that Metro cannot hire officers right now?

My daughter-in-law works for Metro.

Not on the front line, but she's one of the many, many thousands of people that work for Metro.

Since she's a department head, she got the memo saying, Don't hire.

You know, don't replace, don't hire, don't purchase equipment.

So yes, for the foreseeable future, the City, and quite appropriately, is being very frugal.

And I was telling you earlier before we went on the air, it's little things that I'm very cognizant of.

I think I was told that I have a budget for furniture when I become mayor.

And I went up yesterday to the mayor's office, and I looked at the furniture.

This is great.

We're not replacing anything.

It's fine the way it is, because I also want to do my part when it comes to the city and the city finances.

No need for extra expenditures.

-Okay.

Being frugal.

-Being frugal.

-I know you have also had an issue with the Courtyard, the homeless courtyard that the City of Las Vegas built and operates.

You're excited, though, about a new bill from last legislative session to build-- you know what?

You'll have to explain to me what you know about it, because the language itself does not say much about it.

But it's a matching program, $100 million to build some sort of large regional campus for the homeless?

-Thanks to Governor Lombardo and the legislature, they appropriated $100 million for the homeless, with the understanding that the resort corridor would kick in $100 million.

So there would be $200 million to build a campus that would house anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 homeless people for a year and more, just to not only get them off the streets, job training, mental health therapy, opioid addiction and alcohol addiction therapy.

So you can take people from the streets that are ready to get off the streets and be rehabilitated and give them an opportunity to participate in this.

I understand that the different municipal entities will be expected to help maintain the facility, and I think that's appropriate.

I'm very anxious, once I get sworn in, to sit down with the different municipalities.

Obviously, I know them all.

They're friends of mine.

How are we going to work collaboratively?

The homeless don't know they've crossed over the city boundary and they're now in the county, but we have to provide services.

And I don't think anybody should be living on the streets.

It is a dangerous place.

And everything we can do to get people off the streets, we absolutely have to do that.

It's also important for business, because if you have homeless people impeding the ability of your customers to get into your front door, it's harming your business.

A lot of these little mom and pops in downtown Las Vegas that are popping up all over the place, their life savings are tied up in those businesses.

-But downtown-- okay, downtown is also where the Corridor of Hope already is.

-Yes.

-You have Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, you have the Courtyard.

-Rescue Mission.

-This proposal sounds very similar to that.

Why is this needed when this is already in place?

-I think it's quite different, and I think hopefully it's a step up.

I mean, you are, you have to be able to qualify to go into this new facility that's yet to be built.

I mean, so I understand that there-- would like to have the property that's on West Charleston, around Jones and Torrey Pines, in that area.

I drive by.

I live in Queensridge, so I drive down Charleston a lot.

I keep looking for the land, you know, where is this going to be?

But if we can get 1,000 people off the streets at a time and give them the mental health therapy that they desperately need, give them the opioid and alcohol addiction therapy that they need, and give them job training--and hopefully with the resort corridor being a part of this, that there will be jobs available once you leave the facility--I think that is a very important first step.

And I'm hearing from other developers that there one in North Las Vegas, right across the street from the VA hospital, an 800-- a proposed 800-bed facility for homeless veterans.

20% of our homeless are vets.

If we can take care of that issue?

So we're making inroads.

And again, the Courtyard definitely serves a purpose.

It's the only municipality in Southern Nevada that is providing these services, but what is it?

What is it?

What could they do better?

What, if anything, are they doing wrong?

And if not, how can we service more homeless people and get them off the streets?

-That campus that is being proposed, 20 to 25 acres, I imagine you're going to have people in that area saying, No way, do not build that here.

I mean, that's an issue with affordable housing, the "Not in my backyard," and "This isn't zoned for that, so no way."

-I think it's very important.

And you're quite right.

Everybody recognizes that we need affordable housing in Southern Nevada.

It's a supply and demand issue.

We have a very limited supply of affordable housing and a huge demand.

The first house that my parents ever bought, and ever bought in Las Vegas, was, it cost $33,000.

Wasn't exactly the Taj Mahal, but we owned it.

We were property owners.

We belonged here.

And I can't help but-- it changed the trajectory of my family, along with getting a good education.

But that home ownership mattered.

I can't help but believe that there are thousands of families out there, two people working and getting a decent salary and still can't afford a down payment.

So the more affordable-- I'm not talking about Section 8 housing.

I'm not talking about, you know, creating an environment where crime or anything is going to, going to thrive.

I'm talking about middle income families like my own parents, where my dad was a waiter, that want a clean and affordable and safe place to raise their children.

I don't think that's asking a lot.

-Shelley Berkley, we look forward to having you back on to talk more about that.

Real quick before we let you go, tell us your memories of Lois Tarkanian.

-Oh, I'm so glad you asked me that.

-Late city councilwoman, a former school board-- -School board member, Board of Regents, yes, yes.

-She did have that famed Running Rebels basketball coach as a husband.

-Yes, she did.

I love Lois.

I will always love Lois.

We worked together.

We became very friendly when I was on the Board of Regents, and that was during the Maxson/Tarkanian challenges that the entire, the entire state had, but was unique to UNLV.

I was on the Board of Regents at the time.

She and I became very close then.

I was very friendly with Jerry and thought he did a, did a magnificent job as coach.

She went on, after his death, to continue her public service, and I will miss her until the day I die.

She was quite an institution and just gave up her life to public service.

And I think she will be very well remembered.

It was a life well led.

And she was the most devoted wife I have ever come in contact with and a wonderful mother, grandmother.

The woman was, was an institution.

-And she endorsed you for mayor.

-Yes, she did.

And I really appreciated that.

-Las Vegas Mayor-elect Shelly Berkley, thank you for joining us.

-Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

-We move now to the economy.

UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, also known as CBER, held its annual Economic Outlook event at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

I had the honor of moderating its economics panel, a hot topic of which was whether a recession is looming.

(Stephen Miller) In the economy, we have a level of production which we call potential.

That's the economy is not overheating, the economy is not leaving resources idle.

It's at what we call the Goldilocks solution.

You can continue doing this year in year out without having a problem.

So we were-- we recovered from a pandemic recession that lasted two months, unbelievably short recession, and we've boomed back from that.

And we are-- we quickly went above potential because of the fiscal expansion and also the monetary expansion that was put in place to prevent a Great Depression.

And we're still above potential.

That's why the Fed has been trying to get rid of inflation, but not create a recession.

It's like they're walking a tightrope.

If they step to the right, oops!

If they step to the left, oh!

They're still on the tightrope.

And CBER has been predicting, quote, the soft landing, since almost the beginning in March of 2022 when the Fed started tightening.

-And do you stand by that?

Are you still predicting a soft landing?

-Yeah, we're still predicting a soft landing.

We might be wrong, but we've been right so far.

(Sandip A. Bhagat) So I'm actually going to disagree with Professor Miller on that soft landing comment.

So let me quickly define a couple of terms.

A recession is when you have negative growth in the economy.

A soft landing says you barely avoid that negative growth.

You flirt with something like zero, you end up with about 1 - 1 ½% and you move on.

That is below trend growth.

If you hit trend growth in the U.S., that is about 2%.

That is now being called a "no landing."

And I'm going to add to that lexicon, which is my view.

We are going to see above-trend growth.

So forget the soft landing; we're going to see a launch landing.

CBER Director Andrew Woods would go on to say that overall, the economy is strong.

He did identify what he thinks the biggest threat to it is.

You'll hear from him on that after he explains what CBER is forecasting for Southern Nevada in regards to visitor volume, migration from California, and the housing market.

(Andrew Wood) We're still forecasting more visitors this year than last year.

Last year was 40.8 million.

We're forecasting within the year roughly a little more than 41.

It's below the record, which was set in 2016, but we see that kind of consistently through next year.

And then 2026, maybe it will start to then really increase or take off.

This model changes every quarter, but I think right now it's as steady as she goes.

But in some sense, there is a softening in terms of what consumers-- how they're spending their money and where they're spending their money.

-And then we're running out of time, so let's get through a couple more slides.

California migration trends, Andrew, and then, how does this impact the housing market here?

-So we've been doing research on who's moving here from California.

What we're seeing is that we are, one, getting an older population moving here--and this is just from 2019 to 2022--but we are seeing also that the individuals that are prime working age tend to not have a bachelor's degree.

Compared-- the trend has kind of been a little bit better since the pandemic, but not quite as high as our peers.

And then also, their income is, again, a little bit higher than it was prepandemic, but much lower than compared to our peers or other states.

This is on a state level, these charts.

So essentially it's just showing that we are getting, the prime age workers that we're getting here, they are-- their incomes aren't quite as high as the ones moving from California to other states.

And their share-- you know, the share with a bachelor's degree is not as high as the others moving to other states.

We're also getting a larger share, though, of individuals that are 55 and older.

We also see that in our participation rates, where the individuals that are 55 and older are actually participating in the economy at higher levels.

So they're working at higher levels than other, than they were prepandemic.

-So how does this migration impact the local housing market?

-Well, it's, as we can kind of see some of the effect, you have individuals moving here that have a higher ability and income to pay than the, probably the local population, which is creating some haves and have-nots within the housing market.

But at the same time, we're also getting a lot of workers here that's a little questionable about how well are they going to be able to transition into the economy if they're a prime age worker, for example.

-What are your overall takeaways on the housing forecast that you have?

-Yeah, so here's our housing forecast.

We still think prices are going to rise.

Sorry for anyone trying to buy a home.

I'm in your camp, but you know, it is going to be, continue to be pretty sticky.

We see part of this is just in Southern Nevada, we have a land issue.

We have a zoning and just more of a proper plan about how we create more affordable housing and putting resources to it, and it's a long-term issue.

We had a bruise in economic views with our friends at the Lied Center for Real Estate and our friends at RTC in Southern Highlands, and all that came out.

But it really boils down to a long-term approach to kind of fixing this, because there's a lot of challenges.

So we see prices continuing to rise.

-Let's move now to the risks.

What do each of you see as the biggest risk to the economy as we move forward?

-I think housing and this affordability issue is going to continue to be a concern this coming year.

This here, this what you're looking at, is from, again, our partners at the Lied Center for Real Estate, and this just talks about excessive cost burden for renters by state, and Nevada is the second highest in the nation according to their research.

Basically 47.7% of renters are paying, they estimate, 35% or more of their income just to pay rent.

I think this is going to continue because of the shortage in housing in Southern Nevada.

I know that's not only in Southern Nevada.

It's also in Northern Nevada.

It's also in other states.

But I think we're going to see this, this narrative, continue through next year, because demand hasn't really abated, and supply hasn't necessarily increased.

-So it would have to be one of these black swan varieties.

I don't know.

This is not quite time for closing statements, but-- -It is.

We've reached that.

-Okay.

So here's where I believe you.

I'm going to use a three- or five-year horizon.

We have a new economic cycle, which began when the short COVID recession ended in 2020.

I don't see any disruption to this.

In other words, no recession, not next 12 months, which you asked, but not for the next two years, three, four, or five.

We have a new bull market in equities that began in October of 2022.

I don't see that being interrupted.

And finally, the fiscal deficit is not going to be a big issue.

So to me, the coast is relatively clear, and I'm hard-pressed to come up with something that will cause a bear market or a recession outside of an unexpected exogenous event, like a black swan event, which by definition is hard to predict beforehand.

-I think I disagree with Sandip in thinking that it's possible something wild-- and remember the wild and crazy guys on Saturday Night Live?

Something wild and crazy might happen in Congress that affects the fiscal status of our country, and that could tilt us in recession.

-My thanks to UNLV for having me.

And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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