Monday, Feb. 17, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas City Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong grew up in the Richmond neighborhood in California’s Bay Area.
In some ways, she says, the northern California town mirrors the Historic Westside neighborhood she represents on the council in having “salt of the earth people” looking for opportunity.
“In the community that I was raised in, it was a church community, where you help your neighbor, where you look out for people, where you’re concerned about people’s housing and food and education; all those things were part of it, so it’s kind of in the thread of my being,” Summers-Armstrong said.
In November, Summers-Armstrong became the first Black woman elected to serve as the ward’s councilmember. She was sworn into office in late 2024.
I love this (Las Vegas) community,” she said. “I care about our children, their education; I care about whether people are housed; I care about justice, and so I think it’s a good fit. It’s an everyday job that I can just be here and be in the community and do the work.”
Summers-Armstrong was born in Richmond, a shoreline city in San Francisco’s East Bay region where 47% of the estimated 114,106 residents identify as Latino and 17% as Black.
While attending high school in nearby San Ramon, Summers-Armstrong participated in student government and played basketball and tennis — a sport she keeps up with to this day. But hers was one of the few Black families in that school, which sometimes felt isolating, she said.
Her father migrated from Mississippi to California in the early 1940s, and her mother’s family traveled from Arkansas in 1939. The two married and had three daughters in consecutive years.
While her dad worked as a minister in a private mental institution in California, Summers-Armstrong’s mother worked across the Bay in San Francisco for an insurance company. Eventually, Summers-Armstrong’s mother started her own business from their kitchen writing court depositions using an at-home selector, typewriter and transcription machine.
It was through the inventiveness of her mother that Summers-Armstrong taught her first lesson — “we are smart enough to solve problems, (and) that women can lead and do a darn good job at it,” she said.
Summers-Armstrong remembers running around her Richmond home as a child helping her mom answer the phone and take messages. She is the reason why Summers-Armstrong is the woman she is today, she said.
Summers-Armstrong, who in 1990 moved to Las Vegas and worked for nearly 30 years at the Regional Transportation Commission, previously served on the Southern Nevada Economic Community Board and the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority. She also spent two terms on the Nevada Assembly.
It’s the same inspiration Brandon Summers, her son, says he received from her. During her swearing-in ceremony in December, Summers told the crowd his mother’s “drive and resilience” was inspiring.
“Mom, I’m so incredibly proud of you and happy for you as you embark on this next chapter of your career,” he said in a record message. “I know you will continue to serve with the best interest of the community in mind and there is no doubt that Ward 5 is in good hands under your stewardship.”
Summers-Armstrong has big plans for Ward 5, which is seeing an influx of redevelopment projects. One of the projects she’s most excited about is the Historic Westside Education and Training Center, a 15,000-square-foot training center created in partnership with College of Southern Nevada next to the Historic Westside School.
The center will provide credentialed job training to around 300 annual students in advanced manufacturing, construction trades, information technologies and health care. It will bring more jobs and economic development to the neighborhood, she said.
Coming from a diverse background, Summers-Armstrong said she knows what it’s like when the issues of your community may not be at the forefront of people’s minds. That’s why she intends to do everything she can to make sure people feel heard — especially from Ward 5.
“We have an opportunity to grow (Ward 5), to reinvigorate it as a destination point for culture and music and all the things. We have such a beautiful history in historic West Las Vegas, and I think that we have to capitalize on that, (but) we have to be thoughtful,” Summers-Armstrong said.