The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the Scoop with Tanya Flanagan. I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the Scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started. Good morning, good morning, good morning, Las Vegas, and welcome to another edition of the show with me, Tanya Flanigan. as always, I am so grateful for you, my listening audience, and the time that you take to wake up early on a Sunday morning to join me for these discussions, I try to bring you interesting people, and have fun conversations that are enlightening, and maybe expose you to something or someone that you did not know before this moment in time occurred. So I am delighted to share with you this morning a conversation that I'm going to have with Sherry Struthers. Good morning, Sherry.

Sherry Strothers 1:19
Good morning, Tanya. Thank you for having me.

Tanya Flanagan 1:21
Thank you for taking out some time to stop by and spend some time with me here on the campus of UNLV for this wonderful show. We have a great studio here, so it's always nice to welcome people in to see the great technology that's here on campus that's available to the community and to the students as they learn to be our next generation of journalists and broadcasters. For those of you don't know Sherry, I'm delighted to say that Sherry is going to be on your ballot this coming November. We are just around the corner from the general. I think we're like less than 70, maybe less than 65 days away from the election. But we're talking to her today. Just I wanted to, you know, know more about you, who you are, where you hail from, and and people always say, even though I'm in the same arena, people always say those who get in the space of of elections and being beholden and accountable and responsible, are you wired differently, or are you a little bit crazy? So, who are you? Like, where are you from? I know you've spent some time in the military and done some amazing things, but a little bit about who you are and your life story.

Sherry Strothers 2:30
Well, yes, ma'am. I'm actually from Chicago, born and raised. I I left Chicago when I was 19 years old. That's when I joined the Navy, and I have not lived in Chicago since then. I refuse to do another winter

Tanya Flanagan 2:47
while you're in Hades right now.

Sherry Strothers 2:49
See, I can I can deal with this, but I can't deal with the winters. And but I joined the Navy in 1986, and I've been stationed. I was stationed primarily on the East Coast in the beginning, Jacksonville, Florida, Norfolk, Virginia, which is our largest Navy concentration in the world, and I am the mother of one son. I raised him as a single mother. He now works for the VA. I have two beautiful granddaughters, and I enjoyed my time in the Navy it allowed me to grow up, become mature, and during that time I did have success. Initially, I had some problems. I mean, I'm a girl from the West Side of Chicago. Seems like the West Side is always the best side, right?

Tanya Flanagan 3:36
I am not a Chicagoan. Shawtown is not where I hail from, so I will not plant my flag on the south side or the west side of Shy Town, but I do love the skyline.

Sherry Strothers 3:48
Well, I'm just talking about the fact that you've got the west side here. See, it's always the best side, and for anybody from Chicago on

Tanya Flanagan 3:56
the south side.

Sherry Strothers 3:57
Oh,

Tanya Flanagan 3:58
so now we're gonna make me go. Now you make me choose.

Sherry Strothers 4:00
Well, it it rhymes. The West Side is the best side. You you just gotta own that. Okay. Anywho, because actually, you very seldom meet people from the West Side when you meet people from Chicago. You do. It's always South

Tanya Flanagan 4:12
Side. Yeah. Or a suburb.

Sherry Strothers 4:14
I was trying to give it some love, but um, but growing up on the West Side, it is it's it's far more combative than the South Side,

Tanya Flanagan 4:25
really,

Sherry Strothers 4:25
and that's hard to imagine. It

Tanya Flanagan 4:27
is hard to imagine that the West. I mean, I don't know a lot geographically about the allegiances that define Chicago. My family have some family there, as most people do in Chicago, but my aunt was actually in Evanston, and then my cousin and her husband were in. He was a police officer, so I think they were more Peel Hill, South Side Chicago. Yeah.

Sherry Strothers 4:52
Well, it it is. It's so much so that you very see people that have left. That's the point. They. Often stay right there in Chicago, and so that being said, the person that joined had a totally different mentality, and I got into a lot of trouble in the beginning, but I realized that I didn't have anything to go back to, and so I straightened myself up, particularly because I ran across a very strong woman that got me in line. So during that time, I I progressed. I was the shore sailor of the year for the entire Navy. I represented all of Navy recruiting for the Senate Hearing Committee back when I was stationed in D.C. I was in DC 911 when the planes hit the Pentagon, and when I became a commissioned officer, I was chief warrant officer. And when I retired, there were I was one of 20 black women that was a chief warrant officer out of the approximate 1800 or 2000 officers at the time, so I really enjoyed my career, and now I'm a local realtor. I retired in San Diego, and I live off of my military retirement now.

Tanya Flanagan 6:17
Okay,

Sherry Strothers 6:18
but retiring in San Diego, I would have had to do some ball

Tanya Flanagan 6:22
game. Well, first, thank you for your service. It

Sherry Strothers 6:24
was my honor. Thank

Tanya Flanagan 6:26
you. My family is a Navy family, so on that we are aligned. Go Navy! I have a cousin who's currently a commander in the United States Navy.

Sherry Strothers 6:34
Outstanding,

Tanya Flanagan 6:35
isn't it? Outstanding gives me great joy and pride. He does have a ship.

Sherry Strothers 6:41
Oh wow!

Tanya Flanagan 6:42
Yes, but so thank you for your service. It

Sherry Strothers 6:46
was my honor.

Tanya Flanagan 6:47
Yes, yes. Speaking of retirement and affordability, you're currently looking at taking yourself in the vein of service, in the vein of giving back and serving others, to going into the space to hopefully become a city council woman or person in the city of Norse Las Vegas, affordability. Just to talk about your viewpoint on on these different issues that you've seen them through the lens of a naval officer, of a veteran, of a mom, now as a candidate, as a retiree, affordability. What do you? What do your thoughts mean?

Sherry Strothers 7:27
Affordability is tough. I mean, I was a single mother, and I spent most of my career junior enlisted, so I know what it feels like to not have enough to go far. It's a struggle. It was a struggle then when I was supposed to get $400 a month for child support, and rent was $300 a month. And now, it's off the chain.

Tanya Flanagan 7:49
Isn't it something when you pause and you reflect on life, and you realize there was a time when, in your adult life, rent was $300? Because I remember when I first started, I came here as a reporter for the Review Journal newspaper many, many, many years ago, and rent was $600 a month.

Sherry Strothers 8:10
Right,

Tanya Flanagan 8:11
and it's crazy when you think in your adult life you've seen it go from 300 to 2020 $500 a month.

Sherry Strothers 8:18
But Tanya, while you see that happening. You don't see people's pay going up. I worked for 335 an hour when I joined, and we just-it's-it was just in the seven something an hour. But back then, rent was $300 a month, and that goes right back to the affordability. I'm a local realtor, and I got my license in 2021, just as we were coming out of COVID. One of the regrets I have is that I didn't buy a home when I got here initially.

I

got here, I moved into an apartment, and I said I want to check everything out before, and then we got hit with COVID, so by the time we came out of COVID, the home prices were skyrocketing.

Tanya Flanagan 9:07
Yeah,

Sherry Strothers 9:08
and so the homes that I wanted when I first got here were no longer available to me. But what I saw getting my license, one of the things you do when you first get your real estate license is when you're trying to build your business, you start working with renters because then, if you can help someone rent a place, they can eventually become

Tanya Flanagan 9:26
a buyer, and they'll come back and look for you. So you're building your clientele base. Exactly, that's your exercising your strategy of connection. Yes, ma'am. Okay,

Sherry Strothers 9:34
and so during that time, we call so forth and so on. And I met a young lady. She had been living in a home in the southwest area. I think a four or five bedroom home, and she had children in schools there, and we couldn't find her a home to rent in that community anymore, and she was frustrated. So she's like, "Well, you know what? I'm gonna try to buy a house. She couldn't afford to buy a house. It was nothing available to her, and so we kind of lost touch because I couldn't help her. So part of that is you're calling people, always trying to generate business. So about a year later, I'm calling during my call time, and I called her, and at that point she was living in her car. Wow, that broke my heart. I asked her where children were with her. I said your family. So it was just it was heartbreaking to see that happen to her, and it was happening more than I saw. And that's one of those reasons why affordability is personal, because the people that have lived here most or all of their lives. A lot of them have dealt with the fact that they can no longer afford to be here. I came here from California. Everything seems cheap to me, but if you've lived anymore,

Tanya Flanagan 10:53
even for you know California people migrating, and then we're gonna want to talk about a couple other things with you. But even if you are migrating from California, there was a time when, because real estate was so valuable in California, you could really cash out and come to other states and set yourself up for a nicer, more comfortable retirement.

Sherry Strothers 11:14
Yes.

Tanya Flanagan 11:15
Now, at the price point that we have for houses, it really takes a lot of whatever you've gotten in equity out of your California home to be competitive here, and it doesn't leave as much as it used to leave for you to do. So, but that wave of migration from other cities, whether it was the far west coast or some east coast cities, really changed the the buyer's landscape here and the affordability landscape. One of the things that changed it, and so many other things are affecting it right now. I mean, we've talked about that. What if I said to you, "What are your top priorities or the things that concern you in wanting to be a public servant? What keeps you up at night? Just well,

Sherry Strothers 12:00
people being able to afford to have a roof over their head, the homelessness is a real serious concern, and now the food insecurity is through an all-time high. I do go and I help do that in various places, and the lines are really, really long, really long. And in my ward, I've knocked over 3000 doors from the last when we were in the midterms, I mean the primary, and there are a lot of single elderly people that live in the southern part of my ward that are isolated, that can't go out there and cut their grass anymore, but they're getting these, they're getting those hits because they have to cut their grass and do all these other things, and so those are my concerns because the basic quality of life. We're all going to get elderly at some point if we're fortunate enough. We have to. There has to be more concerned about those people. They're isolated and they're alone. Making sure that people eat, and I was knocking doors, and I'll speed the story up. I was knocking doors. This elderly woman was 88 years old. She had no food in her house, and she invited me in. No food in her house. She had some change and a couple of dollars on her couch. That's all the money she had. Her son didn't drive, and they didn't have a way to get back and forth to the store, so I called and had the caucus, the Nevada caucus, but they came and delivered food for me because I couldn't stand to leave this woman, and she had fallen in her yard trying to clean up because she was kept getting those citations, and she couldn't afford to have it. That's insane.

Tanya Flanagan 13:44
I think that's where you. I think there are things that happen in society or that are going on that people aren't aware of. But it's the moment that you see something like that and it becomes super, you know, personal, and you're able to look at it and you say, "If I could do something to change this, what would I do? And that's when going into a space where, say, if you're elected and you know wishing you the best in your race, I may be the person who's able to try to find out what the steps are to effect change to create a program where maybe it creates a a ripple. There's help for the for seniors who can't afford to address these issues on their own. There's an opportunity for some type of employment for someone to do this work. Creates the ripple.

Sherry Strothers 14:41
Yes.

Tanya Flanagan 14:41
Now a family has a job. An elderly family has the resources that they need to have a better quality of life. The city's a healthier, cleaner, happier place to live.

Sherry Strothers 14:52
Yes.

Tanya Flanagan 14:52
And you create this sort of connectivity between people, because I agree with you. As seniors get older, the. We are becoming so technologically driven and so automated that it's not easy for seniors to navigate. Just making a phone call to get assistance can be difficult. So you did a how 20 years in the Navy 3030. Oh, you're 30. You are a career Navy person, and then now you're in real estate. You've been here since 2019. So, what made you decide you wanted to become a part of the community as a as a representative?

Sherry Strothers 15:33
Well, I I chose to be a real estate agent because I wanted to be in service. I wanted because I could have, I've got, I've got three degrees and I had all of that Navy experience, but I don't want to grind. I want to work because I want to. I want it to be something I enjoy. So, real estate gave me an opportunity to give back. I've given back over $50,000 in my commissions to help people get homes, and so when I was in, so what

Tanya Flanagan 15:59
does that mean? Before we keep going because I mean that's that's a huge you gotten your commission and then forfeited the commission or giving it back to someone as a closing cost or down payment or

Sherry Strothers 16:10
right so over that period of time every veteran every VA loan that does a loan with me I always give a $1,000 credit in the transaction, so that $1,000 goes to them towards whatever their closing costs, whatever, and then they don't pay the broker fee. I always cover the cost of that. At my first brokerage, it was 495 95. Now it's 195, but I always eat that cost. If the seller won't agree to pay my clients to buy my clients a a home warranty. I always pay that, and I always get the warranty that's at least $700. I want them to have the best policy, so if I can't get the seller to buy it, I buy it. And when it comes to like, I had two transactions closed this month. One of them I gave $3,000 because the sellers wouldn't do it, and they needed that in order to have their payments where they could afford it. So they got that credited, and the other one I gave that $1,000, and I always have that 1995. And so, I live off of my military retirement. I bought a home, and I have my life structured to live off of my retirement. So my real estate money was supplemental, and so I've always been very generous in that regard. And that makes me feel good.

Tanya Flanagan 17:32
That's very nice of you. Thank you. It's also nice to learn that about you, and just to kind of explore the mindset behind your why, so how does that lean into this new space? So how does the life journey lean into the new space? And what are you hoping to accomplish by placing yourself sort of in the spotlight? And

Sherry Strothers 17:55
well, the election results of 2024. I mean, I knocked doors for Kamala. I went to the DNC. I thought this is one. Yay, life is good. When that didn't happen, I was distressed. I stayed in the bed for three days, and I had met Danna Lowell, the emerge Lavelle. Thank you. I butcher her name. I apologize, Danna, but I I had met her when I was at the when I got selected for the DNC, and she gave me the card. So I went and found the card. I went into the emerge class. While in the emerge class, I was learning, and I decided I could be a part of the difference I want to make because when I was on active duty, I had an executive officer tell me once because I used to try to change everything, and he said, "Sherry, you can only control what is within the scope of your umbrella. And so I assessed I can't be the president. I can't be a state official. One of those assignments was to look for a local office.

Tanya Flanagan 19:04
Maybe you could be the president. Just say. I'd

Sherry Strothers 19:08
like to be that now, but

Tanya Flanagan 19:09
wow, I digress.

Sherry Strothers 19:11
But yes. So I saw that that seat was becoming available. The incumbent couldn't run again. Turned out, and so I, I'm going to do that, and what I want to accomplish, what I want to do, I'm going to scale my real estate business back. I've done that now because running consumes all of your bandwidth. The two transactions I had, that was a lot of work. I I treat my clients like VIPs, and I couldn't do that and balance out this, so I I scale that back. When I win, I would love to win. I will refer my business. I won't do that because that position is part time, but I'll work it full time, and I want to know the residents. I've talked to a lot of people, and what I've promised to them, because I know you're not supposed to promise and make commitments, right? But I've knocked on. Those doors, and what I've always told all of them is that I promise you, I will always be available. Call me if I don't answer the phone. I'm probably busy. I'm going to call you back. I'm going to be transparent, and I'm going to work very hard. Now, when I was everything that I've ever done in life, I always run into it head first, and people very often be like, "Girl, you're crazy. When I I was a I was a Navy recruiter, and when I came out there, I'm like, "I'm putting 10 people in a month. Well, the reality set me straight; that wasn't going to happen. And I only mention that to show that I think big, and and I did get close to that goal. So, I want North Las Vegas to become one of the premier areas of the valley. Right now, people think it's just the northern part of Las Vegas, and on in all actuality, if you don't live in North Las Vegas, you have no reason to come.

Tanya Flanagan 21:01
That's really very probably very true.

Sherry Strothers 21:02
Yes, and our C tax is the lowest of anyone. Our consolidated tax is very low. It's like 325 or somewhere around there, and we, as people that live in the city, primarily spend a lot of our money outside of the city.

Tanya Flanagan 21:19
I would have to agree with you, and yes, that's probably very true.

Sherry Strothers 21:22
I love. I mean, it's

Tanya Flanagan 21:23
been a conversation about the area for a very, very long time that there really is not a destination point. No, there are errands to be run, and you do those close to home to keep reinvesting in your community. But there are moments when, depending on what the errand is, you could be out doing something at a destination point, and you actually could run the errand, i i e lunch and Home Depot. But lunch is probably not in the city. Lunch is outside the city, and Home Depot just happens to be down the street from where you went to lunch, and so it creates this missing feeling. So yes, I. I mean, I agree.

Sherry Strothers 22:09
I love Macy's, and I have to go into Vegas to go to Macy's. And so, because we do so much outside of the city, that's lost revenue. Even one of our biggest attractions. There's 1000s of veterans that go to the VA hospital, but they have no reason to stop. They can jump right on the 215 and just leave. They have no reason to spend any money in our city. And so, what I want to do and what I want to be a part of is us growing strategically, finding ways to bring in-we don't have a Costco in our city.

Tanya Flanagan 22:45
No, I think the closest one is in Las Vegas. Right, we we

Sherry Strothers 22:49
have no luxury areas in our city,

Tanya Flanagan 22:52
not rival luxury areas. Even with the development of Aliante and some spaces, it still doesn't rival something like a TPC or Red Rock Canyon, right? Yeah,

Sherry Strothers 23:05
and and as a realtor, when people homes when someone says North Las Vegas, there's always a negative approach to, especially when you're talking the eastern end of it, which is my ward, and so we've got plenty of fast food restaurants. I'm not interested in more of those. I'm in a food desert. I have to drive five or six miles to go to the grocery store, and that's frequent throughout the entire ward. And so I'm interested in us doing that. I want us to have a nice place to eat dinner. I had someone at one of the doors when I was knocking. He complained that he has to drive to Henderson to play pickleball.

Tanya Flanagan 23:47
That has becoming a that is definitely becoming a conversation. Some of the recreational offerings, and while I think North Las Vegas has a generous portion of parks in a reasonable mile radius to most people's residential properties, some of the things that are specific, like pickleball, which is becoming increasingly popular, is something that I have heard residents talk about is missing, and they would like to see. I think there's some plans to bring some online, but to meet the needs of the community, you have to bring multiple locations online, which takes money to do that type of capital improvement project, something like pickleball, tennis. It just doesn't matter what it is. You have to have the dollars for the capital improvement project to be successful.

Sherry Strothers 24:35
You do.

Tanya Flanagan 24:35
I see that,

Sherry Strothers 24:36
and even dog parks-they're not plentiful in my ward, because when you see things that are changing, moving, approving, they're typically in the western part of the city, not on the eastern part. And the

Tanya Flanagan 24:51
eastern part is really neat. For those who don't have maybe never ventured, I feel like it's where culture lives. Right? It's where. Character, personality-you just have to decide. I remember when Mary Lee was coming in, and we sat and had a conversation, and asked me what I thought, and I said, "You have to decide who you want to be. And I think that conversation is still one to really to be truly had in some ways. Some cities you think of-they're very green, they're very connective. They're walkable cities. Like, who do you help? What type of quality of life are you trying to create for the people who live there? And I think that is this is a great opportunity to continue to have that conversation and see the city continue to expand in a positive manner.

Sherry Strothers 25:40
Absolutely, and part of that southern end includes part of the original North Las Vegas, North Town. That should be identified. There's no marker. You can't make it historic because most of the original structures have been torn down. It was really done in the '60s, but making something special about that. I mean, there was a lot of history that was made in that.

Tanya Flanagan 26:08
And it's interesting that that's something that you've locked onto because you're not an original part. You're not a native,

Sherry Strothers 26:14
right?

Tanya Flanagan 26:14
You've moved here from somewhere else to become excited about the history that you're learning about and the desire to work to preserve that, so that is really an interesting facet of you know what you're undertaking in this in this goal to become the a city council person for the city of North Las Vegas. It's Ward One,

Sherry Strothers 26:38
Ward One,

Tanya Flanagan 26:39
Ward One, and what are the boundaries for Wart? One for those who aren't familiar before we, we've talked about it. But yeah,

Sherry Strothers 26:45
so at the top in the northern end by the 215, Pecos Road is the border, and it goes to the east, and then it goes down. Pecos actually runs through the middle, and it's the eastern border on the bottom.

Tanya Flanagan 27:00
Okay,

Sherry Strothers 27:00
but on the top, it when you go along the 15, it curves along the 15, and then Owens, right before you go into West Side, Owens is the border.

Tanya Flanagan 27:12
Okay,

Sherry Strothers 27:13
and it it has the City Hall, and we've only got two and a half libraries in all of the city, and the one

that one that used to be a standalone is now in the city hall building, and it's it's there's nothing there, so you can't take your family there. You can't do any cool things. I'd like a real library, standalone, where families can go. The

Tanya Flanagan 27:36
library's been a long-standing conversation in the city of North Las Vegas, and I know they've taken some steps to try to expand the services, and a lot of families probably just get the resources they need because they're adjacent to a city at Las Vegas Library. To be perfectly honest, so that's been a longstanding conversation, and there was an opportunity many, many years ago for the North Las Vegas Library District to be absorbed into the Las Vegas Clark County Library District, but that did not materialize.

Sherry Strothers 28:04
I heard about that. As a matter of fact, I talked to the person. Mo was in the Senate, I believe. I think

Tanya Flanagan 28:10
Modena. Yes. Well, many people were here at the time. Right. He. I was actually a reporter. Wow. That's why I know these things. I want people to have an opportunity to get to know you better, and we're getting into the end of the show. So, if you'd like to, there's some social media you want people to know how to track you down.

Sherry Strothers 28:30
Well, you can always find me at Sherryfour F O R nevada.com, and that's Sherry S H E R R Y, and those are that's also the handle for my social media as well. I would love the engagement. I am planning to work very hard for my city and for the people of my ward. I'm going to ride for them because it's important that we take care of our city, and I want Ward One to become the crown jewel of North Las Vegas.

Tanya Flanagan 29:03
Well, you heard it here, folks. Sherry Struthers on the ballot in November. It's been a pleasure to have some time with you, folks. Thanks for tuning into the show. That is all the time we have. Once again, I look forward to talking with you next week. I hope you will tune in. Same station, same time. 91.5 KUMV. Jazz and more. Stay hydrated. I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me, Tonya Flanagan, and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle T A N Y A F L A N A G A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya Almanize Flanagan. And if you have a thought, an opinion, or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to Tanya.flanigan at unlv.edu. Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai