Greetings Public Works Team!

Last month, our City Council approved some changes to our municipal code that will affect us all going forward. Specifically, codes were changed that eliminate references to the Department of Operations and Maintenance – a step that formally recognizes the merger of the Department of Public Works and the Department of Operations and Maintenance into the Department of Public Works. As I write this, we are now ONE PW DEPARTMENT of SIX DIVISIONS and about 550 full-time employees, that puts us as the second-largest department in the city of Las Vegas behind only the Department of Fire and Rescue. To help improve communications, recognize a variety of achievements, and provide a way to “get to know” some of your co-workers, we will be publishing "THE WORKS" at least once every quarter. I hope you enjoy it!

I firmly believe that with our newly merged department, TOGETHER WE ARE THE BEST and better able to meet the needs of our citizens for all things public works-related. I can’t tell you how many times over the years that citizens, business owners, visitors, developers, other city employees, and other interested parties would pose a question to our Mayor and Council or our Office of Communications concerning a public works-related issue and there would be some level of confusion as to whether the issue should go to the Department of Public Works or the Department of Operations and Maintenance. Providing clarity to our customers is incredibly important and this is one of the reasons that our city manager, Jorge Cervantes, led the recent effort to merge six departments into three.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been lucky enough to participate in a roundtable once a year with other peer public works directors across the United States in an annual gathering known as the “American Public Works Association Big Cities Roundtable.” This gathering has been generally limited to city public works directors that fall inside the 30 largest cities in the country by population. Currently, we stand as the 25^th-largest city in the country and with our continued growth, we could easily fall within the top 20 largest cities in a couple years. For someone like me, who started working for the city of Las Vegas in 1997, it has been an incredible ride seeing our great city meet the infrastructure challenges that we have faced. This is only possible when you have a great leadership team and a dedicated staff. As I meet with all of you from time to time, I often talk about encouraging your co-workers who you believe would make great leaders to apply for leadership team job opportunities. I consider every position, from the senior-level position to supervisors and managers, to be part of the leadership team for our department. Keep doing the great work that you do and TOGETHER WE ARE THE BEST!

The City Engineer Division plans, designs, and constructs public works’ infrastructure and city facilities and is pivotal in improving our resident’s quality of life, enabling economic growth, and creating jobs. Rosa Cortez was promoted in June to City Engineer, and now has the important job of leading the City Engineer Division team in this important service to our community.

Rosa is a Las Vegas native and earned her degree in Civil Engineering from UNLV. During her college years, she was hired by Public Works as a student intern in Development Coordination. Soon after graduating, she returned to the city of Las Vegas as a full-time engineering associate in Flood Control. She continued advancing and worked in Sanitary Sewer Planning and Engineering Design. For a brief time, Rosa was the Parks Maintenance manager in the Department of Operations & Maintenance, but returned to Public Works in 2018 as the assistant city engineer. Needless to say, Rosa has climbed the chain through hard work, dedication and perseverance!

Rosa leads the City Engineer Division consisting of seven sections – Flood Control and Sanitary Sewer Planning, Capital Project Management, Architectural Services, Construction Management, Survey/Right-of-Way, Special Improvement District and Environmental Oversight and Compliance, all of which work together to plan, design, and construct public works infrastructure projects and city facilities. Rosa is responsible to ensure the division is running efficiently by having appropriate staffing levels, monitoring workloads, and implementing a division-wide work plan and annual budget. In addition, Rosa supports the executive director of Infrastructure; interacts regularly with elected officials; addresses citizen inquiries in a timely and positive manner; and serves as a liaison to other city departments. Balancing these duties requires that she stays environmentally conscious of departmental operations. Most importantly, she is passionate about fostering a culture that values people and their differences. 

Rosa has always found being a civil engineer in the Department of Public Works to be fulfilling, especially the reward of starting a project from concept and being able to carry the project through to construction. 

“I have always enjoyed being a public steward and being able to serve our community," says Rosa. "I am very fortunate and grateful to work with a great group of individuals who have a variety of strengths that complement each other. When we all work together to accomplish the goal, we demonstrate the epitome of ‘building community to make life better’.”

Rosa enjoys spending time with husband Angel and their three daughters. She loves UNLV basketball and the Dallas Cowboys. One of her favorite things to do is plan parties! 

A quote Rosa lives by is, “Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.” – Anne Frank.

Sept. 28 - Employee Safety Fair & Training

The city of Las Vegas Safety and Risk Management Division is hosting a citywide employee safety fair Wednesday, Sept. 28, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event will be held at 833 Las Vegas Boulevard North (Human Resources Operations). All city employees are invited, with particular concern to educate lead employees, supervisors, managers, directors and other organizational leaders with responsibility for workplace safety management and oversight of city employees. There will be many displays from vendors who supply safety products to the city as well as hands-on demonstrations of products. There will be several breakout sessions, both morning and afternoon, to provide an education and training component for city employees, including the use of fire extinguishers and AED training, ergonomics education, a session on the hazards of respirable silica exposure and a breakout session on safety leadership. Lunch and door prizes will be provided, so save the date and plan to enjoy lunch while you improve your workplace safety. A training schedule will be available before the event. Please coordinate your attendance with your supervisor. 

Michael Kirk
August 2022 Employee of the Month

Michael Kirk is a Facilities project manager in the City Engineer division of the Public Works department. Hired in January 2002, Michael has witnessed the silver tsunami sweep through his department, with 50 percent of the key staff of the on-site construction management team gone in the past few years, including the supervisor. And all this while the city is constructing high-profile  projects, like the Historic Westside Legacy Park, Strong Start at Wardelle, the Corridor of Hope and Health and Wellness Main, and dealing with the challenges of a pandemic. With 15 years on the construction management team, Michael accepted the supervisor position in January 2021. He has rebuilt and trained the team we have today. In addition to managing his team's workload, Michael works with construction representatives and the rest of the construction teams to mitigate the impact of unprecedented material cost escalations, supply chain issues and changing labor laws to keep city projects moving forward. Through it all he  remained positive, kind, committed and focused. Michael is a valuable leader on our city construction management team who lives the city's values.

KUDOS

• Justin Presny, Environmental Compliance Inspector - “was very patient as we struggled to get a contractor, proposal and material in this post-pandemic time. Thank you.”
• PW Environmental team - “Just a quick note to say thanks to the CLV Public Works environmental team for facilitating access to the Durango Hills facility for a TRT confined space training event today. Crews from LVFR, CCFD and NLVFD were able to use the facility to put in some work on ropes, air monitoring, ventilation and entry. This is the first time a combined agency training event like this has taken place at Durango Hills, and I’m happy that our fire crews were able to make effective use of the space.”  Submitted by Human Resources Safety Administrator.
• Andrew Thiemann has been awarded the American Public Works Association (APWA) Nevada Intern Focused Scholarship in the amount of $1,500 for his academic studies in the 2022-2023 school year. Andrew passed the Professional Engineer Exam in August 2022, as well!  

• We have been awarded a RAISE grant in the amount of $23.9M for the GreeNVision: Stewart Avenue Complete Streets project. The project (see artist rendering) includes the installation of a protected two-way cycle track, sidewalk widening and obstruction removal to meet or exceed ADA accessibility guidelines, upgraded lighting, bus stop improvements and amenities, the addition of significant landscaping and street trees, prediction technologies for cyclists and pedestrians near intersections, and a corridor-wide speed limit reduction.

The RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability & Equity) program evaluated projects on several criteria, including safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness and opportunity, partnership and collaboration, innovation, state of good repair, and mobility and community connectivity. Within these areas, the Department considered how projects will improve accessibility for all travelers, bolster supply chain efficiency, and support racial equity and economic growth – especially in historically disadvantaged communities and areas of persistent poverty. We are honored and excited to receive this award!

• Our Citywide Intersection Crash Mitigation Program project was awarded the 2022 Transportation Achievement Award for Safety by the Mountain District Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). The award was presented at the Mountain District ITE meeting in Boise, Idaho.

The City Employee Picnic is scheduled for March 4, 2023. Save the date -- details to follow soon.

Start planning your costumes or group costumes, as both will have categories this year and there will be an in-person costume contest!