Minja is running to build a more affordable, livable, and responsive Clark County for us.

Our economy faces serious challenges: tourism is declining, unemployment is rising, and local businesses are struggling with high costs and complex regulations. At the same time, employers can’t find skilled workers while residents struggle to find living-wage jobs.

As County Commissioner, Minja will create a streamlined, “One-Stop-Shop” to cut red tape for small businesses and prioritize local contractors and suppliers for county projects. She will expand Clark County’s Department of Economic Development budget and invest in a new CDFI (Community Development Financial Institutions) to provide low-interest micro loans and technical assistance to help local, small businesses grow.

She’ll partner with CCSD and College of Southern Nevada to expand workforce training in high-demand fields such as healthcare, biotech, skilled trades, and cybersecurity, by creating more apprenticeship and internship opportunities. She will also increase affordable childcare spaces at county-owned community centers and libraries to help more residents, especially women, enter the workforce.

Thirty years ago, in 1993, Commissioner Bruce Woodbury championed the visionary I-215 freeway, the only locally funded freeway in America, proving Clark County can achieve transformative projects when we have the political will. Today, we face a new imperative: building a regional light rail system to secure our future growth and economic competitiveness for the next 30 years.

While Phoenix, a hotter city than ours, has built 35 miles of light rail connecting riders to jobs and opportunity, we’ve fallen 20 years behind. While other cities are moving forward, Las Vegas is stuck like our traffic. Clark County has an annual budget of roughly $15 billion dollars. The question is not whether we can afford this transportation investment, but whether we can afford to keep falling behind competitors like Phoenix and Denver.

As County Commissioner, Minja will:

• Champion a regional light rail system to create construction jobs, spur economic development, and finally address our traffic crisis
• Expand express bus route connecting Southwest to key destinations like the airport, Strip, Allegiant Stadium, and UNLV
• Support RTC and champion public transportation as our regional priority
• Improve existing transit with better lighting, shade structures at bus stops, and complete streets that work for all road users.

Just as I-215 made today’s Las Vegas possible, light rail will define our next generation of growth.

How do we pay for a light rail?
Light rail tends to spur new development such as multifamily, offices, and retail, near transit stations. We can create special districts along the transit line to capture the increase in property tax revenue that happens after the new light rail line project raises nearby property values.

• The “base” property tax level is frozen.
• As development and values go up over time because of the rail line, the increment, the new tax revenue above that base, is set aside to help pay for the rail project or related improvements.

Cities like Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas use this financing mechanism to reduce tax burden on local tax payers.

The American Dream is being priced out. Locals are being squeezed out by soaring rents and housing costs.

As County Commissioner, Minja will:

1. Remove zoning barriers that limit the construction of smaller, more affordable homes for first-time buyers and young families with smaller household size.
2. Eliminate wasteful parking minimum requirements, particularly near transit corridors, to let property owners decide how much parking is needed. This reduces construction costs, prevents huge, empty parking lots. Why is the parking lot in front of Walmart bigger than the store itself?
3. Increasing lot coverage and reducing setback restrictions
4. Reforming building codes to allow missing middle housing such as duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes to be built in non-master planned single family neighborhoods.

These policies will unlock more housing choices, increase supply, and lower costs for everyone.

Housing and transportation are two sides of the same coin. The real cost of housing equals the cost of housing plus the cost of transportation (owing a vehicle, insurance, registration fee, maintenance, etc.) Funding reliable, expanded transit will enable transit-oriented development, lower housing costs (by cutting residents’ transportation expenses), and create walkable neighborhoods.

Housing is not only a supply issue. Housing needs to be built at the right location near jobs, amenities, transit, and infrastructure.

Our first responders are overburdened, forced to act as doctors and mental health workers for mental health and homelessness crises. This pulls them away from focusing on emergencies, violent crime and property thefts.

Minja will advocate for more funding and stronger partnerships for service providers, mental health professionals and paramedics for non-violent mental health, substance use, and homeless crisis calls. This frees up LVMPD police to focus on serious crime.

She will use proven urban design strategies such as better lighting, clear sightlines, and vibrant public spaces to make neighborhoods inherently safer. Additionally, Minja will work to redesign dangerous streets and commit to achieving zero traffic fatalities, ensuring safety for all residents whether on our roads or in our communities.

She will also advocate for more funding in youth programs and job initiatives to provide positive pathways for young adults and prevent violence.

Lake Mead is only 30% full. UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) study projects Clark County will reach a population of 3 million people by 2045. We are growing in a desert with a limited water supply. Sprawling, low-density development consumes our natural landscape, increases car dependency, pollutes our air, and strains infrastructure.

As County Commissioner, Minja will implement smart land use and prioritize developments on previously developed, vacant, or underused land within the urban core of the valley instead of on raw desert public land in the outskirts of the valley. We can ensure we manage our water, protect Nevada’s beautiful public lands, and build a resilient community for generations to come.

Las Vegas is known as the “healthcare desert”. Nevada has historically underinvested in medical education and residency programs. We don’t train enough doctors here, and when we do, we don’t have enough residency slots to keep them. Too many in our community struggle to see a doctor due to cost, distance, language barriers, or mental health stigma.

Minja will bring clinics to our neighborhoods – building a community center with a health clinic inside in Southwest and establishing a Federally Qualified Health Center in Chinatown that accepts all insurance (including medicaid and medicare). Minja will break down language barriers by funding Community Health Worker programs and professional interpretation services.

Minja will also grow our healthcare workforce through partnerships with local universities and medical institutions, creating accelerated certificate programs and residency slots at our new community clinics and other facilities throughout the valley to make sure that our healthcare and medical students stay in Las Vegas rather than moving to another state. We’ll ensure every resident can get quality physical and mental healthcare close to home.

Recent investments into our public school system and improved teacher pay has finally unlocked some progress for our students, but Nevada’s education system still remains one of the worst-performing in the country. Our children are 20% of the population and 100% of our future.

As County Commissioner, Minja will work to keep the forward momentum: create career pathways through partnerships with CCSD and local employers in high-demand fields like healthcare; invest in early childhood education to provide affordable preschool; build Safe Routes to School with traffic calming measures and protected bike lanes; and strengthen the school-community connection through paid internships and apprenticeship programs.

Education isn’t just a school district issue, it’s a community issue and an economic development issue. The number one challenge that employers mentioned from moving into Nevada is public school quality and lack of local skilled talent. When our schools thrive, our economy thrives. Boston ranks #1 for biotech because they rank #1 in education, having the best universities like MIT and Harvard. We must think long term. Better school = better economy.

Your local government should make your life easier, not harder. Minja will be the most accessible and engaged commissioner District F has ever seen.

As your Commissioner, Minja will make government accessible by moving public meetings to after-work hours and expanding online access; hosting regular office hours and coffee conversations in libraries, community centers and local businesses to meet you in your neighborhood; and ensure true transparency through regular community meetings on key issues like housing, traffic, and public safety.