The Oakland A's try to sell state lawmakers on a publicly funded stadium plan, plus how Southern Nevada's largest food bank is addressing an increase in food insecurity.

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.

We begin in Carson City where Nevada's 82nd Legislative Session will soon come to a close on June 5.

So will the Athletics get their stadium funding bill passed in time for that?

We bring in Nevada Independent Reporter Sean Golonka.

And, Sean, we will get to the A's; but, first, there were some negotiations overnight between Wednesday and Thursday.

What happened, and how much sleep have you gotten?

(Sean Golonka) Very little sleep, Amber.

The Capitol Press Corps was at the Capitol around midnight to watch Governor Joe Lombardo sign a pair of the five major budget bills that are basically used to fund our state government over the next two years.

And that came after hours of negotiations on Wednesday between Democratic leadership in the legislature and the Governor.

Basically, lawmakers moved forward a couple of high profile school safety bills in order to get the Governor's signature on those couple budget bills.

-Okay, so what did the budget bills entail?

-So one of those budget bills is the K-12 Education Funding Bill.

It's the largest education funding bill in state history, basically boosting K-12 education funding to a record high in state history.

And the other one is colloquially known as the Authorizations Act.

It basically authorizes federal spending for things like Medicaid.

-Okay.

And as you had mentioned, the Governor had threatened to veto these state budget bills if he hadn't gotten his priorities addressed.

So in exchange, he got a couple of school safety bills passed.

What do those include?

-So those basically reverse some of the restorative justice policies that the legislature had passed in 2019.

Lombardo campaigned on this in 2022, basically talking about a rise in violence in our schools, especially in Clark County.

We've seen attacks on teachers.

And so this is going to put some extra teeth into state laws allowing for school discipline, basically, and trying to amp up that school safety and keep teachers safe and students as well.

-Yeah.

So overhauling the restorative justice measures which provided alternatives to expulsion and suspension, with an end goal of decreasing the number of students that end up in the criminal court system.

As you mentioned, three more budget bills have to go before the Governor.

He either signs or vetoes them, or they become law.

I encourage our viewers to follow your reporting for updates on that.

But let's go to the A's bill now.

The A's owner, John Fisher, doesn't make a lot of appearances.

But he was actually at the state legislature on Wednesday, along with the team president, lobbying for up to $380 million in public funding for a 1.5 billion dollar stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

What kind of impact did their presence make, if any?

-You know, I think it was a subtle impact publicly.

Certainly, they were moving around the building, going to different lawmakers, and probably whipping votes on the bill, you know, just trying to talk to folks about what they're seeking in Las Vegas.

And so they weren't present for the bill's initial hearing earlier this week, but they did come into the building to talk directly to lawmakers and kind of sell them on this idea.

-And broadly, Sean, what do you think the A's chances are of getting this bill through in time?

-That's a difficult question, Amber.

You know, I'll say the Governor is supportive of this.

But on the flip side of that, we see some key Democratic lawmakers, including Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who chairs the powerful Assembly Ways and Means Committee, which this bill will have to pass through.

And she said she is a "Hell no" on the bill earlier this week.

And so the A's are going to be working to get her on their side.

-What would be her reasoning for hell no?

-I think that the public funding aspect of this, right?

So the bill caps public funding for the stadium at $380 million.

And so that's a lot of money to invest in the stadium that might otherwise be able to go to government services.

You know, that's state funds that could be spent on health care or housing, county funds that could go to similar services.

And so it's really a question of where do you want that money to go, and that's kind of being settled in the legislature right now.

-Yeah.

And that $380 million would be a combination of transferable tax credits and public bonds.

Let's move now to another big appearance at the legislature, and that was new Las Vegas resident and actor, Mark Wahlberg.

He was there in support of the Film Tax Credit Program, a massive expansion of it.

Did he have anything interesting to say, anything substantial?

-Yeah, right.

The second big Hollywood actor to come to the legislature in the past couple of weeks.

Jeremy Renner was here recently too.

And Mark Wahlberg basically came up to show his support for the bill, kind of talk about the vision for Hollywood 2.0 in Las Vegas.

And so I think he really just emphasized that, that he thinks this is a program that will help build out the film industry in Vegas, and he sees a strong talent pool for the industry in Vegas.

And he's supportive of that.

-So where does this bill stand now?

I mean, Monday, June 5, is the end of the session.

-Right.

This is-- It's really up in the air.

Yesterday my colleagues and I spoke with Lombardo's Chief of Staff, Ben Kieckhefer.

And he talked about how the general fund liabilities of this bill are unlike anything we've ever seen.

You know, $190 million in annual tax credits is really a significant chunk of money to basically take out of the state budget, like I said with the A's bill, could otherwise be going to other government services like education.

And so even though Democratic lawmakers, I think, are pushing this bill forward, there's still a lot of discussion about amendments.

And we just don't know where the Governor really stands on it.

-And this could possibly bring Sony films to Southern Nevada.

As you've reported, this has been in the works for a couple of years.

Why was it introduced so late in the session?

-I think it was just kind of, you know, bringing everyone on board, working out all the pieces.

This is not uncommon in the Nevada legislature, where we see really big policies introduced so late in the session.

Take the Oakland Athletics' stadium deal bill, for example, that was introduced, you know, in the couple final weeks of the session.

And so it just tends to be how our lawmakers work with these things, it seems.

-Why is that common here do you think?

-I think, you know, for one, they're working on the budget for a lot of the session.

And so they're kind of getting an idea of what money do we even have to spend on something like tax credits for the film industry or tax credits for the A's.

And I think also this, this legislature has some issues with transparency.

They're not subject to the Open Meeting Law like many other public bodies in Nevada, and so sometimes it's just difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes here at the legislature.

-And to your point, I think people felt the same way when they heard there was going to be the hearing about the A's bill on Monday, which was Memorial Day.

Sean Golonka with The Nevada Independent , thank you so much for your time.

-Thank you, Amber.

-Back here in Southern Nevada, the food bank Three Square says 1 in 7 of our neighbors is hungry.

Add in a recent reduction in SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, and the food bank says even more people don't know where their next meal will come from.

Nevada Week visited Three Square to discuss that and more with Director of Operations Maurice Johnson, Senior Outreach Manager Nolga Valadez, and Event Marketing Manager Will Edwards.

Well, thank you all for joining Nevada Week.

Before we talk about food insecurity, I want to mention volunteers that are in the background.

They are packing meals for Meet Up and Eat Up, a program we're going to be talking about.

And you told me off camera, Maurice, that they are from Coach Cares, the handbag company.

How neat!

Volunteerism reportedly took a hit during the pandemic.

It was down.

I wonder if that happened here, and how are you doing now in that area.

(Maurice Johnson) So if I can, I can give a little bit of context.

-Sure.

-Prepandemic, we would have roughly about 34,000 volunteers coming through our facility helping us out with various different programs that we had offered at the time.

-How often was that?

-Throughout the course of a year.

-Okay.

-You fast-forward to pandemic hits, everything shuts down.

Well, we had to shut down in that aspect because of safety concerns, COVID.

Early on, no one even knew what it was, except it was very bad.

And ultimately, some of those programs that we offered during that timeframe with some of our community partners have not been able to come back.

So when you look at 34,000 volunteers annually now down to about 13,000, that's a huge drop-off.

-Wow!

-But with the programs that we do have in place and still have here, we're just so gracious and so thankful for those volunteers that still come in each and every single day, whether it's a group like Coach Cares or individuals.

We have individuals that come here every single day, almost like a full-time job.

-On their own, not part of a group.

-Right.

-Well, speaking of COVID, Nolga, when it started, people receiving SNAP benefits began receiving a second monthly payment as well.

As of April though, that second monthly payment is no longer there.

What kind of impact has that had on the groups that you serve?

(Nolga Valadez) Yes, that is correct.

We saw the last monthly extra allotment coming in the month of March.

After that, it went back to what it was prepandemic.

One thing we do want to make clear is that SNAP has not gone away.

We want to make sure that everybody understand that SNAP continues.

It was just the emergency allotment that went away.

And while some of those reductions were extreme-- -Give me an example for seniors.

-Right.

So a senior typically receive around $23 a month of benefits.

With the emergency allotment, they were getting an extra about 200 and something dollars per month extra.

So with that going away, now they see about a 91% reduction in their benefits, so which is a very extreme impact for them.

-I struggle to understand how $23 was significant enough in the first place for seniors who were the seniors on Social Security, I would think?

-Yes, that is correct.

Usually they're on a fixed income receiving Social Security benefits.

And they're the ones receiving, typically, those $23.

-Okay.

What kind of impact has it had now that they're no longer getting that second monthly payment?

Are you feeling it here at the food bank?

-Yes.

We are receiving more phone calls in our call center, people seeking where they can get that missing component.

So we're seeing people asking for, Where can I go get food?

So we're giving out, you know, food pantry locations as well as our Golden Groceries program that allows the seniors to go to specific Golden Groceries, pantries where they can get that extra help, as well as the Lyft rides that is free of charge to them if they don't have transportation.

So we're able to accommodate them with that.

-Maurice, fair to say increased need as a result of those SNAP benefits no longer being there, the second monthly payment?

-Indeed.

-So increased need.

You have inflation as well.

Where do donations stand, and can you paint a picture of do you have enough food?

-Well, I can tell you donations are down.

And I'm talking specifically to food donations.

Inflation not only impacted each and every single one of our individual households, it also impacted a lot of our retail donors as well.

So they're having to watch their bottom line.

That's where many of those donations were coming from.

We're hoping that they can come back soon.

But in the interim, of course, when individuals can give to us financially, we can still stretch every single dollar to make three complete full meals.

So if people still want to contribute in that way, that is a massive blessing for us, being a part of the Feeding America network.

-It's better for you to get a monetary donation as opposed to a food donation because you can, as you mentioned, make that dollar stretch.

-Yes.

-Okay.

I want to bring in you, Will, about inflation and how it has impacted Restaurant Week, which will you tell me about that.

It's one of your biggest fundraisers of the year.

(Will Edwards) Yes.

It's one of our biggest fundraisers.

I always look at Restaurant Week as a great community activity.

It gives-- it really shows us the humanity in our community because people come together, they have a meal, and then a meal is then given to someone in our community who needs it the most.

-So that's how it works.

You go to a restaurant, and part of what you're paying for goes to Three Square.

-That is correct.

-How has inflation impacted this year's event?

-It's very-- it's very interesting.

Some people, some restaurants, couldn't do it because of it.

But on the flip side of that, we have this year, the most participants ever in the history of Restaurant Week.

We have more than 230 participants for Restaurant Week this year.

So even though inflation is hitting the restaurants as well, they're still coming back.

It's Vegas strong.

-And inflation is hitting everyone when they go out to eat.

So how expensive is this to take part in?

-Well, every restaurant that participates, they agreed to do a three course prix fixe menu at a fixed price.

So when I go through restaurantweeklv.org, you can filter through price points to find everything.

I believe that there is something for everyone on Restaurant Week.

For example, there are tons of $20 lunches out there.

And the other day, I went to a little fast food place to grab a couple of sandwiches for myself and my wife, and it costs me $25.

You can go out and get a three course lunch for 20 bucks and help your hungry neighbor at the same time.

It's a win-win.

-Nolga, I want to bring you back in and go to more of a national perspective that could filter down to Southern Nevadans.

As of this taping, the debt ceiling deal that is reportedly in the works has additional work requirements for older Americans, excluding veterans and homeless people, but that they would have to work in order to receive assistance.

So currently, according to The New York Times , work requirements apply to able-bodied adults 49 years old and younger.

This deal would raise the age to 54 years old.

What do you think about that?

What kind of impact do you think it would have if that's what ends up happening?

-Yeah, well, the reality of it is the older we get, the harder it is to find work.

So, you know, increasing the age group may make a little bit-- a little bit more challenging to, to be able to obey to that new, um... -To this new requirement.

-Yes.

-It sounds kind of scary then for a food bank like yourself.

What are you preparing for?

What do you foresee coming down the pipeline?

-So when we're bringing food into the food bank, our biggest priority is trying to make sure we get the bang for the buck.

So we've gotten very creative with trying to make sure that we're not leaving any stones unturned to try and get the best price to get the food in here for our hungry neighbors.

-Okay.

And how have you gotten creative in that process?

-More vendors.

We've used more vendors than we ever have in the past.

We had a select few that we could bounce numbers off of.

Now we're using anywhere from 25 to 30 different vendors for different commodities.

So whether it's fresh produce, whether it's dairy, proteins, frozen proteins, you name it, we're trying to shake those trees and see what we can get.

-So you're looking around to find the best price possible.

-Mm-hmm.

-Getting creative.

I think Restaurant Week also fits in with that, Will.

What are you particularly excited about this year with Restaurant Week?

-First of all, it's our 16th year doing Restaurant Week.

And I'm excited because there's so much variety this year on Restaurant Week.

We-- I mean, of course, you have Mexican, we have Mediterranean, we have Filipino food, Chinese.

It's so many opportunities to go out and find your favorite new place.

-So whatever you're feeling like, you can probably find.

And that is how people can help Three Square, but let's talk about other ways in which Three Square is helping people.

Meet Up and Eat Up, what is that program?

-So Meet Up and Eat Up is our Summer Food Service Program in which we go out into the community.

There's roughly 80 sites that we go out to actually support kids that eat-- that need to eat during the summer months.

Unfortunately, under Free and Reduced Lunch Program and when school's over, those kids may not have anything to eat.

That's where we work to try and close that gap so they can have a nutritious meal so they can be a kid during the summer months.

-And when we spoke on the phone prior to this interview, Nolga, you had a message you wanted to make sure that you got across about some of the misconceptions about the people that utilize food banks.

What was that message?

-Yes.

You know, we have this misconception that perhaps people that are receiving SNAP benefits or are utilizing this benefit are people that do not want to work or they're lazy and they just want to sit at home, when the reality of it is that it's not necessarily true.

The majority of the people receiving SNAP benefits actually do work.

It's just that they're not making enough to be able to meet the needs that they have, especially with families, when you have single parenting, or maybe there is two parents but only one working, or maybe they both work, but they don't make enough.

-I see all of you nodding your heads.

-Mm-hmm.

-You experienced this personally here?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-Without a doubt.

I mean, you know, like Nolga said, anybody who needs help, we won't turn-- we won't turn anybody away.

But it's working families.

You know, it's families, individuals that are trying to make ends meet, and they just can't do it.

So they just need a little boost, just a tiny bit of help and assistance to get them over that hump.

And we've had people come in and say, I was-- I was doing terribly.

You guys helped me.

Here's a donation.

I'm doing much better now.

I don't need the service.

-Very neat.

Thank you all for your time today.

-Thank you.

-Another nonprofit helping fight food insecurity is the Abodo Collective.

Nevada Week's Maria Silva got a special tour of their new urban farm on Las Vegas' Historic West Side.

♪♪♪ (Cheyenne Kyle) A little birdie told me that I grow the best arugula.

(Maria Silva) Chef and Master Gardener Cheyenne Kyle is definitely growing some of the best and tastiest arugula in town.

-This is gonna taste very different from what you get in grocery stores.

-Joining Cheyenne on this very special taste testing, the Abodo Collective cofounder, Erica Vital-Lazare, and Executive Director Tameka Henry.

(Tameka Henry) But it's so fresh, and it's so refreshing.

-The Abodo Collective's vibrant and bountiful urban farm, plus all of the other services they offer, already making a difference in the Historic West Side.

-This location was chosen because this area, it lacked a lot of things: access to fresh produce, grocery stores.

We really focus on multigenerations to get them out of poverty.

And so there are programs that we have.

Our three main pillars is food security, so we have the farm here.

We also focus on housing.

Once they're stable, like they have housing stable, their food is secure, then we work on getting them employed.

We take a holistic approach.

We want the whole family to be well.

And so we also connect families who need childcare resources.

We connect them to the resources.

-Rooted in a community with such rich history, Tameka, Cheyenne, and Erica also wanted to honor the beautiful strong women and mothers turned activists who came before them.

And they did so with this breathtaking mural.

(Erica Vital-Lazare) Miss Ruby Duncan, she is someone who I consider an inspiration, a mentor.

I've had some beautiful conversations with Miss Ruby.

This is Miss Ruby Duncan's work.

This is the work of Abodo to really combat systemic poverty, systemic racism, systemic-- You know, all of these oppressive forces that many of us experience has to be, I think, combative with this kind of beauty, this kind of discipline that Cheyenne and Tameka have as they tend every day to the families that come to Obodo for some sort of assistance.

-The beautiful mural also honors Indigenous women and mothers.

-We consulted with Dear Sister Fawn Douglas from Moapa Paiute.

In conversation with Fawn, we really understood that it was not one tribe that we're honoring, not one indigenous vicinage that were honoring, but a collective.

So this is our sister looking into the work, looking into the future, honoring the past, honoring what's to come.

-This masterpiece, a collaborative effort involving talented local artists.

-Duran Boyde, Malachi Williams-- -The actual color of her face is called "Something Ruby."

Every color that's in her is in her, just kind of the opposite.

-And then we had Courtney Haywood come in.

He's an activist, someone who's very much into community building, as well as an artist.

He saw Malachi and Duran at work and said, Can I-- "Can I lend a hand?"

So you have this kind of the hand of three beautiful artists, three beautiful legacy makers in their own right.

-We had the honor of experiencing firsthand how neighbors have embraced and welcomed the Abodo Collective and its urban farm.

-She's very soft spoken and forceful.

(Man off screen) Thank you!

-Thank you, brother.

Thank you.

Okay.

That thank you is everything that, you know, we really dreamed of and envisioned, because we've all been in these spaces.

I was not born of the West Side, but I'm from a west side.

♪♪♪ -On your beautiful website, you have a Spanish proverb.

-It's one of my favorites.

"More grows in the garden than what the gardener sows."

I think it kind of encapsulates everything that I'm really aiming for here.

It's about growing friendships, growing communities, growing connections, growing in love, growing in gratitude.

So I have some, some collards, I have bunches of dill, I have some kale, and we got a lovely ladybug here.

-Oh, right there.

-We're very, very lucky.

We have more continental growing days than any other state.

-Really?

-We can grow so much.

I grow year round.

You just have to grow with the season.

I actually had a neighbor from down the street who was a veteran come and just eat a radish out of a bed.

And he was like, "It was so good."

They're so crispy and juicy and flavorful.

-And to have, again, little kids to our veterans coming in here, that is special.

-Oh, my goodness.

It means the world for me.

I feel really, really fortunate and very grateful to be able to do this and to share it with everyone.

I love that you're elated.

You haven't stopped smiling since you've gotten here.

-It makes my heart so happy because I know what this means to this beautiful community.

-Yeah.

-And to our city and to know that you're doing this with such love.

And I love what your shirt says: Get help Give help.

And that's what it's all about.

-Yes, definitely.

-What do you love the most to harvest and share with the world?

-We have cherry snacking tomatoes, which are the better variety to grow here if you're growing in Nevada.

It's not gonna taste like any tomato you've ever had.

I promise.

Right off the vine.

Fresh from the farm.

-It's so juicy too.

And again, I can't eat by myself, so buen provecho.

Bon appetit.

-Bon appetit.

-Mmm.

-Oh, it's so good.

-Oh, we love the stories that our Maria Silva brings us as well.

Thank you to her.

The farm is open to the public.

And every Sunday morning, you can pick your own fresh produce for a small fee.

The farm is also planning other community events, like just a few weeks ago to celebrate the unveiling of that beautiful mural Maria showed us in the story.

The farm held a special screening of the documentary Storming Caesars Palace , a film inspired by the life of activist Ruby Duncan.

You can watch that documentary by visiting our website, vegaspbs.org.

And that is also where you can see any of the other resources that we have discussed here on Nevada Week.

For now, thank you for watching, and we will see you next week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪