An urgent call to action to help fund the One October memorial, plus Southern Nevada's Regional Development Authority has a new leader, and she's not local.

Also... (Dan Mullen) I looked at the new world and said, okay, I'm going to change this way when I come back.

And if I change that way, then I can handle the new world of college football, because I have to give up a lot of things that I used to do and beliefs I used to have.

-...UNLV Football Coach Dan Mullen shares how he's navigating a new era of college football that allows schools to pay their athletes.

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.

The Forever One Memorial will honor the 58 lives lost on October 1, 2017, the lives forever changed, and the community that rallied together to confront the repercussions of the worst mass shooting in recent US history.

It will be located on two acres of the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert grounds where the shooting took place.

And a memorial of this scale is expected to cost around $45 million.

Here to explain more about efforts to fund it is Kelly McMahill, Retired Deputy Chief for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the current Treasurer of the Vegas Strong Fund.

Kelly McMahill, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

(Kelly McMahill) Thank you for having me.

-And especially on this day, because as we record this interview, it is October 1, and it has been eight years since that horrific night.

What is this day like for you?

-So, typically, every year, this day starts early.

I wake up about three in the morning.

And I've given myself the grace over the last few years to allow myself to go back to that moment when the phone call came in.

It was unlike anything I'd ever been part of.

The phone rang, and my husband, who was the undersheriff at the time, answered it.

-And now the current sheriff.

-Now our current sheriff.

And I remember he looked at me and he said, This is real.

We have to go.

And just the look on his face, I mean, we've been together for years, we have five children, we've been through a lot together, and that look and the way he said, This is real, we have to go, I'll never forget that.

And so I really try to start the day off prepping myself for the sunrise ceremony, which we attended this morning.

It's beautiful.

And every year we hear from a family member of one of the 58.

And this year, just like every other year, so poignant and touching.

And it reminds me that these 58 folks, who they were in life and not just who they were in death.

-What was your role after this mass shooting?

-So that night, it was very interesting, because I was a captain in charge of investigating officer-involved shootings at the time, but we had so many deceased individuals that the homicide team ended up taking over that aspect of the investigation.

So I was the captain tapped with being in charge of the criminal investigation, of course along with the FBI.

In the days that followed-- It took us about three and a half months to get that report completed, and then the sheriff at the time, Sheriff Lombardo, asked me if I would author the After Action Report.

So I ended up coauthoring that report.

It took another 18 months to finish.

And then I was lucky enough to be asked to sit on the One October Memorial Board with a group of seven individuals.

There's seven of us total, and we were the ones that chose, along with the help of the impacted community, the permanent memorial that will-- that design was chosen.

And now I don't know how I got so lucky, but I've been asked to be on the Vegas Strong Fund nonprofit, which is we're in charge of fundraising and building this permanent memorial.

-How would you describe this task?

-First of all, it's humbling to be part of something that's so much bigger than myself.

So for that, I'm grateful, but it's a heavy lift.

It's $45 million.

And it's not just the money.

The heavy piece is that we owe it to so many people to get this done.

There are family members of these loved ones that are gone, that they'll never see again, and this is the lasting memorial to the people that they loved.

It's a tribute to the survivors that were out there that night.

There were 22,000 people at this concert.

And so the heavy, heavy lift of this is going out and asking for money, which is never an easy thing to do, but doing it on behalf of this impacted community, it's an honor.

And so we will get this done.

We're-- We got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but we're starting to gain some momentum.

-What was that rocky start?

-So I think, you know, I was asked to do some research on memorials.

And what we found across the country, across the world, actually, the best way to fund these memorials is through both public funding and private funding.

And it's done a little bit differently everywhere, but the most successful are done in this way.

So we really were hoping to go to the legislature.

As we went up north, we had an entire One October day.

We brought survivors with us and family members of those who died, and we had this amazing day up north.

And we had a lot of hope the lawmakers would come to us with something, with some type of funding just to get us started.

Unfortunately, that didn't come to fruition.

It was really disheartening, sort of a crushing blow, I think, for all of us.

-And that was past session.

-That was this past session.

-What reason did they give?

-So we didn't get a reason, Amber, which I thought was interesting, because we had lawmakers stand out front at the press conference with us and vow that this would happen, that this memorial would be built.

And we didn't get an answer.

I think, you know, they tried to tell us there was no money.

And while I respect that and respect that they have very difficult decisions to make and I've never sat in their seats, I don't know if that was completely accurate.

But here we are today, and it's not going to stop us.

We are more dedicated than ever to fundraise and build this memorial.

-Granted, there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the budget this past legislative session.

And also, it's an expensive memorial.

When you think of other memorials for mass shootings, the Pulse nightclub shooting, for example, I think they finally have agreed to make that about $12 million.

That has yet to be constructed.

That was in 2016.

How do you explain that to people, the need for 45 million, especially when the land has been donated from MGM?

-So the land was donated, thankfully, and again, that's somewhere between 13 and $14 million.

We are forever grateful for that donation.

Look, I'll just say this: Pulse nightclub is a tragedy that was compounded upon tragedy.

If you go back and look at their process, unfortunately, they had theft involved in their nonprofit that was supposed to build this memorial that happened before our shooting.

And so their community deserves so much better than what's happened to them.

We are uniquely different here in Las Vegas.

We always have been.

We always will be.

We are going to build a memorial that is a permanent, lasting, beautiful structure that pays homage to not just those that lost their lives, but the first responders that were there, to the resiliency of this city.

And so $45 million is where we landed.

Initially, we got a price tag of $71 million.

We pared that down dramatically, but it's really not out of bounds when you consider that this is the worst mass shooting in US history.

The second closest thing that occurred, the tragedy that occurred next to this would have been 9/11.

That memorial was about $500 million to-- $500 million to build.

And again, if you've been there, it's beautiful.

We want to build something that not only does justice to all the people that we owe this memorial to, but fits in with our city.

And we're talking about a city that is iconic.

This is going to be built on the Las Vegas Boulevard.

So to all of us that are involved, and if you see the project, if you take time to look at the sentiment that is there, just the actual beauty and the honor and the tribute that's paid to everyone that was involved in this, I think people will agree that $45 million is reasonable.

-How much money have you raised?

-We're at $4 million.

And I have to give a big shout-out to Mr.

Foley and the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

They were our first million dollar donor.

It was remarkable.

We just came from them presenting the check to us this morning.

I personally wish that so many others across this valley would follow Mr.

Foley's generosity, other sports teams, other philanthropists would see how critically important this project is, that it's going to outlast all of us.

Once we're gone, it will still be standing.

And I wish that they could find it in their hearts to find that generosity.

-And for those who may not have the ability to contribute a million dollars, there are-- there's a smaller level.

-We know everyone out there doesn't have a million dollars they can just write a check for.

And so we started last week a commemorative paver drive.

We are selling these pavers in two different sizes.

And what I love about it is you can add your own icon.

I chose the Vegas Golden Knights icon.

It made the most sense to me.

And you get to put your own message on this paver.

The pavers will be at the entrance of the memorial as you walk in, and they'll be part of this for eternity.

So again, long after I'm gone, my message will remain for people to continue to see.

-You want to open this in two years, 10 years after this shooting.

Do you think that's going to happen?

-I do.

I do.

Listen, for me, this is such a personal passion project, and it is for so many of us.

Vegas Strong Fund was started in the aftermath of One October.

Their job initially was to gather all those funds that had been donated, millions upon millions of dollars, and those folks had to decide who got that money, right, based on their level of injury or whether or not they lost their life.

Those folks were already deeply committed, and they're incredible leaders in our community, people like our prior mayor, Jan Jones Blackhurst, right?

She's our president.

The group that I sit around the table with, they get things done.

We will get this done.

My husband, as the sheriff, is committed to getting this done.

You can't go to a ceremony like we did this morning and listen to a father talk about losing his 31-year-old daughter, mother of three, who died in her husband's arms.

You can't listen to that and know the things that I know and not get this done.

So there are people out there that will help us.

We're just really getting started in earnest.

Again, with public donations and private donations, we will get this built.

And it will be the pride of Las Vegas when we do it.

-Kelly McMahill of the Vegas Strong Fund, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you for having me.

Appreciate it.

-We turn to economic development now.

According to a 2024 report from the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV, Southern Nevada's economy remains much less diversified compared to other Mountain West metros.

It goes on to say that the lack of a diverse and resilient economy leaves the region and, by extension, the state of Nevada vulnerable to macroeconomic downturns.

It's the job of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, or LVGEA, to expand Southern Nevada's tourism-heavy economy.

And now the public-private partnership has a new leader.

She's the only out-of-market person to ever hold this position and joins us now.

Danielle Casey, President and CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, welcome to Nevada Week.

(Danielle Casey) Thank you for having me.

-And that means by you being the only out-of-market person that you did not live and work here prior to getting this position.

-Correct.

Doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed Las Vegas and haven't been a huge fan of this community.

-Okay.

Well, do you want to tell us how?

-Little bit of family story there.

Because we're a military family, somehow my mother sorted out that the best place for a family reunion in a gathering had to be Las Vegas.

I think we started coming out here when I was about 13, annually as a family, and so many, many years after.

I've always had a fondness for it, but seeing it through a whole different lens and experiencing it is just absolutely incredible.

-Right.

Now you are somewhat responsible for the growth of the economy here.

And I wonder, is that something you had to overcome in the interview, that you are out of market, technically?

-I'm certain that they were considering all types of personalities and skill sets, but the experience in the interview made it very clear to me that the leaders that were selecting the next CEO wanted to make sure that they had somebody that was bringing the right skill set to lead a regional economic development organization.

A company that's coming in, in the most traditional sense, is looking at your market.

So anyone, even if we say gaming or high value ad manufacturing or cyber security, if they're looking to hire people in our market, they're not going to say, I only want someone who lives within the Las Vegas city limits.

I want someone who is willing to drive to the facility I'm locating in, and I'm choosing to locate in this market because of the many benefits or assets that that market has that fit my company in particular and I know I can be successful there.

So it's very much a team effort, but I believe in the criticality of a regional collaboration and partnership.

Because if a company goes to Henderson, we should celebrate that in North Las Vegas, because it's creating more economic impact for the whole market.

-And you are coming from the Albuquerque region.

What was economic development like in that region when you arrived, which was how long ago?

-Five years.

-Okay.

-So when I came to that organization, it actually had a different name.

It had been called Albuquerque Economic Development, Incorporated.

But they had been around 60 years, and their bylaws said that they served to the four county region, which were four distinct counties, all with municipalities within them.

And I found out very quickly that that wasn't necessarily how the communities understood the organization's work.

So we spent several years working on conversations around the impact and benefit of regional cooperation.

And so I'm very proud that after two years of being there, we not only had the City of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, which is the centers of gravity--very similar to Las Vegas and Clark County here, just in terms of structure--that we had always worked with them, but then we had expanded that to bringing in Sandoval County to the north, which had the fastest growing community in all of New Mexico in it; Rio Rancho; as well as many communities to the south that were huge centers for facilities, like a major Meta facility, Amazon facilities, and a lot of logistics and manufacturing.

So it was similar, but we had to grow that in a very intentional way.

So I'm extremely proud of that, and they've had tremendous success.

-You have been on the job here about a month.

What have you come to understand about how well the region here collaborates economically?

-Yes.

Great question.

What's really wonderful coming here and one of the things that really, truly, and I've mentioned this before, enticed me to this role, our chamber of commerce and now my organization, LVGEA, it was very apparent to me in the interview process that they are true collaborators and partners.

That's amazing, because a lot of times you do see friction between chambers of commerce and economic development agencies, typically because of a lack of understanding either within the organizations, their leadership, or the community on who does what.

And the other beauty is we already have our local municipalities in the county very involved in LVGEA.

They serve on our board of directors.

Just this morning, I was able to convene a group of the economic developers in those communities to have my first discussion with them, share information about the work we're doing, our pipeline of business development activity, and upcoming events and programs and how we work together on those as well.

So I would say my initial impression is very good, but there is always upward opportunity.

-What about the consistent theme that the Las Vegas area is overreliant on tourism?

Where do you stand on that?

-Any market that has a much higher concentration of one industry and not diversity in others to see it through challenging times is something that we need to work to level set.

Having been a frequent visitor and being a huge fan, I would never in the world suggest that we should reduce our investment and our focus in our tourism.

And I spent several years as the economic development director for the city of Scottsdale, Arizona.

So while not to the scale we have here-- If anybody's familiar with Scottsdale, quite the visitor location, quite the destination, extremely well known nationally and globally.

And so I was able to work in tandem with our CVB there in lockstep, and we really understood that tourism is the gateway to your community, and it's how people learn about your community and get exposed to it.

That is a path often to then business locates that diversify your economy and talent.

How do you attract talent?

How do you bring them in as a tourist and show them this could be a place they could live and work in?

So it's just a matter of understanding that better and leveraging it hard so that we can bring more diverse industries to the market.

-Which industries stand out to you?

-Oh, goodness.

Well, there's a lot of research to be done, and I look forward to digging into this deeply.

And we're going to, by the way, do this rapidly, rapidly for LVGEA as a strategic planning exercise and then also rapidly in our leadership in a regional comprehensive economic development strategy, which we're going to be tasked with next year.

Very excited about that.

So a lot to unpack.

Don't want to get ahead of the data, but I think there are many things we're going to investigate much further.

There is a lot going on in national defense.

And as we know, we have two adjacent military bases with people that are coming out.

And even folks that are retiring out of those bases have very unique skill sets that if we can keep them here and capitalize on that and then use their their capabilities to attract companies that then create opportunities from touch labor all the way up to very sophisticated, high paid jobs, wouldn't that be wonderful?

So there's that.

There is cyber security, there is AI.

We've obviously been looking at sports entertainment and film.

I'm going to hone in on anything related to those industries that creates net new wealth in our community, which means whatever we're doing, we're finding a way to export more out of our state than we're importing or circulating around, because that's the net new wealth piece of base industries.

So that's our sweet spot that we focus on.

And the more we do of that, the more we'll create additional diversification so that we can complement one of our tremendous assets.

When you think about it, it's not-- while it is tourism, look at a city like Detroit.

I just came back from a conference in Detroit, an amazing story where they had a tremendous economic collapse and challenges and were able to build back up and diversify while still being the Motor City.

-Danielle Casey, new president of the LVGEA, we look forward to having you back on in the future.

Thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.

My honor.

-And while some say Southern Nevada relies too much on tourism, UNLV Head Football Coach Dan Mullen says, in recruiting, it helps him.

(Dan Mullen) There's a lot of great fun things.

Go to a UFC fight with a lot of guys on the team.

We-- We're, you know-- -You were at the boxing match.

-Yeah.

Canelo-Crawford, the fight.

The fight of the decade, or whatever it is, we're there.

There's restaurants, hiking, boat.

I mean, there's all of these things that a lot of other towns don't have.

-Mullen is in his first season at UNLV.

Before this, he last coached in 2021.

That's when the University of Florida fired him after a 5-6 season.

A former SEC Coach of the Year, he won more than 100 games as head coach at Florida and Mississippi State, but returns to what he calls a new college football world where athletes can more easily transfer to other schools and where schools can now pay their players for use of their name, image, and likeness.

We spoke with him about how he's adjusting.

-The coaching part of Florida didn't end the way I wanted to.

That wasn't my final chapter of coaching.

Reflecting on what happened there, probably the end was very different than a lot of people would think.

And then you get to rationalize that, and you really find, okay, college football's changed.

How can I be better?

And to be honest with you, that's one of the things that really excited me here.

It's brought a lot of joy back to the coaching part of my life being here.

And I really enjoy it, you know?

I really enjoy it here.

-And you choose to return when it's completely different.

I mean, the name, image, and likeness money, the transfer portal.

-It's a very different game, very different game.

-I mean, when you are recruiting players, are you literally telling them how much money you might be able to get them in a deal?

-Well, I don't, but our GM does.

I tell them, this is how we'll develop you.

But I share with a lot of players.

And it is a shame.

It's still about development.

The game is still about development.

I sat with a young guy we have on our team.

I remember he said, Coach, this would be my third school in three years.

And I said, well, here's a great deal for you.

If you are worried about how much you play, how much you touch the ball, how many tackles, whatever your stats, if that's all you're worried about, next year you'll be at your fourth school in four years; and the year after, you'll go home and you will have gotten nothing out of this experience.

If you worry about your development, if every day you just worry about getting better, all the things the other things you're worried about will take care of themselves.

And so you're still in this developmental game.

The key is making sure you understand how to implement the new world of transfer portal and NIL into the development game and making sure the players still understand it's still about your development.

And as soon as you're worried about anything but getting better every day, the result's gonna go the opposite direction than what you think it is.

-And it seems like what your strategy has been, that you've talked about, is take it one year at a time.

How do you develop a player with just one?

-It's tricky.

You have to think about it and build a team together.

It's really a one to two year.

-Okay.

-It's really one.

And you can have a little bit of an idea within the program.

Used to be a program, you're looking four to five years.

Back when we were the number one team in the country at Mississippi State, you could see this group of guys coming up and say, these guys have something about them that are pretty special.

Well, in today's world, they wouldn't have all been there.

They would have transferred or wouldn't have been able to keep them all or something would have happened.

So you could see like, hey, two years out, this group could be special coming up.

In today's world, you're looking-- We put this team, I mean, it's a whole new team.

We came back with two returning starters on the whole roster.

You got to build from there.

But you understand that being out and coming back in.

You get into the picture of things of let's focus on it's all about this year, and maybe we'll look a little bit ahead to next year with the program in a two-year window.

But definitely not beyond that.

So I was able to get that while I was away.

I talked to a lot of coaches, and you could see the old school coaches really struggle with the new world of what it was.

I could promise you this: If I had stayed in coaching, I don't know that I would still be going.

I think you look like a Nick Saban, and you look at a lot of the guys that are walking away and just because they were living the change on a day-to-day basis.

I looked at the new world and said, okay, I'm going to change this way when I come back.

And if I change that way, then I can handle the new world of college football, because I have to give up a lot of things that I used to do and beliefs I used to have.

And as long as you can accept that, you know, I'm still the same person out on the field, but how you run the program is different.

-Have you seen that it changes how players operate or compose themselves, or-- -A lot.

You know, listen, there's added pressures.

There's added pressures on the kids.

-Because of NIL?

-You know, they're looking, the family members of, Hey, we can make money off of you now.

You know?

And, Boy, are you getting the most you can get?

And again, you know what they're not saying?

Are you getting your degree?

Are you getting better every day?

Is this building a foundation for you 15 years down the road?

And so you have to kind of guide them through that part of life.

You know that part of the 2014 Mississippi State team that came back, all of those guys are like, Coach, every life lesson you gave applied to me in this business I opened, and I'm really successful.

Applied to this job.

I'm out in the backyard yelling at my son the same thing you yelled at me, and I get it now.

I didn't get it when I played for you, but I get it now.

And as a parent and as a husband, I get the things that it was you were teaching us way more than the game of football.

Well, when a lot of the worries go away from just their development within a program, you can tend to lose that, and you hope not to.

And we still try to hammer that point home.

-At the time of that interview, UNLV was 4-0, and already Coach Mullen was being talked about as a coaching candidate at other universities.

He told Nevada Week that he's happy here.

He loves Las Vegas and that he doesn't think there's anywhere else for him to go.

You can hear more from Coach Mullen about why he chose UNLV in the first place on this week's episode of Nevada Week In Person.

To see that, go to vegaspbs.org, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

♪♪