Mesquedia

Mesquite Needs More Hot Air

2012-02-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

This dirigible didn't go anywhere on Saturday due to
wind problems. But people showed up anyway, and
Mesquite was buzzing with visitors and tourists.

Did you try to get into a casino restaurant over the weekend in Mesquite? Search for an empty slot machine?

It was a challenge.

And we should be thankful.

Mesquite was popping over the weekend, thanks to the hot air balloon event held at the CasaBlanca Resort and CasaBlanca Golf Course.

The event started with a fizzle on Saturday when hundreds of people showed up at the links near Sunset Greens beginning at 6 a.m. to see the balloons take flight.

Hopefully our capable new mayor and city council will get right to work making a new law which precludes any event which requires spectators to be vertical before 8 a.m. on a weekend.

Unfortunately, because of atmospheric winds or solar flares or a cracked and leaky magic eight ball ("Will balloons fill the sky this day?"...shake shake shake..."Outlook not so good.") Mesquite's skies were filled with just common ordinary everyday sunshine and azure blue on Saturday instead of the expected spectrum of colors found on a collection of hot air balloons.

I'm told the liftoff was successful on Sunday. I wouldn't know, because as Grandma Pyle used to tell Gomer, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Nothing less than Elvis in a rattan gondola could have dragged me out of a nice warm bed on a frigid Sunday morning to roll the dice on another chance to see (or not see) the spectacle.

With chattering teeth and frozen nernies, and plenty of time to consider such things since there was nothing else going on at the Casa course Saturday morning, I couldn't help but wonder about the turnout.

For starters, watching the dozens of vehicles and hundreds of people traipsing across the manicured fairways, I couldn't help but wonder exactly how much apoplexy the vision would bring to Randy Black if he saw his beloved golf course invaded in such a manner.

Accordingly, it also made me appreciate the sacrifice and effort made by Black and the casinos to give up two weekend mornings of golf revenue in the middle of high season, and endure the inevitable turf damage.

To be sure, they made it up on the back end, judging by the busy casino floor and crowded conditions at the Purple Fez on Friday night.

And that's the point.

If you hold it, they will come.

Mesquite used to have events like this just about every weekend during season.

Now that the economy is trying to make a comeback, it's time for us to do the same.

The car show held in Mesquite three weekends ago was reportedly the biggest ever. So it's obvious there's some pent-up discretionary dollars burning a hole in the pockets of people who are tired of letting the recession beat them bloody. It's like the eruption of joy following a society-wide version of cabin fever. People are ready to begin trying to have fun again.

For those who remember the heady days of Mesquite circa 2006-07, they can attest that there's no better place for that fun that our little community.

Next week, BransonFest is sure to fill the casino floors again. (That's right, it's a celebration held during the week instead of the weekend, showing just how much drawing power the appearance of Faux Presleys can have.)

Not only is BransonFest a lot of fun, it's a testament to the imagination and creativity of some people who aren't going to wait around for a more traditional event like a bluegrass festival or carnival to lure visitors. Can you imagine being in the room when this idea was first being pitched?

"Here's what we're gonna do. We're going to pick a tiny little town just a few miles from the entertainment capital of the world, and we're going to make up a festival there to celebrate the show power of another little town on the other side of the continent."

It's like popping up in Linda Loma, Calif. and deciding to hold Mayberry Days.

Amazingly, it works.

Now we need more events and activities like it; more hot air balloon events, car/boat/plane shows, and fill-in-the-blank-fests.

The casinos on both sides of town are doing their part.

Our arts community is keeping up their end with things like the Mesquite Western Roundup later this month and the annual art show.

We can't expect much from our Chamber of Commerce, a dysfunctional organization that couldn't figure out how to draw flies to a cow patty, and it's really not a city government's job to manufacture events to bring in tourists, but there are plenty of other clubs and groups in town that would help their community greatly if they were to get on board and start organizing big local events.

So that's the challenge. The time is right, the lettuce is ripe for the picking, and we're overdue for Mesquite to return to being the tourist destination we all know and love.

If you have an idea for an event, even if it's just something you've seen or done somewhere else, speak up and leave a comment. This is how big things get started.

VVWD Exercises: Bend Over And Grab Your Ankles

2012-01-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

Okay everyone, it's time for our daily Virgin Valley Water District exercise class.

Step one - bend over.

Step two - grab your ankles.

Step three - prepare for some pain.

Step four - do it all over again.

At Tuesday's VVWD meeting, the board once again entertained an offer to purchase some river water shares from a local owner.

Once again, because that shareholder's last name wasn't "Hardy," they declined.

That's to their credit, because we still have people trying to soak the water district for $70,000 a share on water that just seven years ago was going for $6,000 a share.

As a reminder, we can thank greedy moneygrubbers like Dixie Leavitt and the Southern Nevada Water Authority for doing the exact same thing to the price of water shares that greedy realtors and land speculators did to housing prices a half-decade ago - driving up prices to artificially unreachable levels for no good reason other than to line their pockets. Leavitt started the ball rolling when he sold a huge chunk of water shares to SNWA for an obscene amount of money. As it is in the real estate business, that set the "market price" for water, and was the starters pistol for the price race to the moon.

On Tuesday, VVWD general manager Ken Rock offered a sound fiscal warning to the board: If you buy a water share for $70,000, then turn around and lease it to the golf course owners for $250 a share (a horrendous decision the board made last year), it will take about 280 years to pay off the water share. And that's without interest!

It was a brilliant piece of financial advice. In fact, it sounds vaguely familiar. Who said that exact same thing last year? Oh that's right, it was US!

Unfortunately, Rock (who is the best thing to happen to the Virgin Valley Water District in more than a decade) also fired another shot across the bow on Ordinance II fees, the made-up fee the water district charges for the alleged purpose of buying more water on the open market.

He pointed out that collecting $3,300 in Ordinance II fees for every new house built in the Valley while spending $70,000 per share for river was another losing proposition.

On paper, he's right. Figuring $3,300 per house, two houses per acre foot of water, and about seven acre feet per share, it comes to around $46,200. While VVWD math would call that "break even," the rest of the world would call it a $23,800 loss.

This is where today's exercise comes in.

Instead of adjusting the leasing costs of those shares to the golf course owners from $250 a year to $7,000 a year, which would pay off the purchased shares in 10 years, the board is once again hinting that they need to increase the Ordinance II fees.

The part they keep forgetting in their smoke-and-mirror calculations is this: The $70,000 figure is for Virgin River water shares, meaning irrigation water. Guess how many homes and commercial buildings in Mesquite use irrigation water? Show us the answer on the big board, Johnny! That's right, ZERO!

VVWD does not and never has pumped river water into homes. Every drop of potable liquid comes from underground aquifers. So NONE of the irrigation shares the water district is buying for 70 grand is going to the new houses - you know, the buildings that are getting charged $3,300 a pop when built.

So once again, those who are building and buying homes are paying for water shares that are only benefitting the golf course owners! And the rate increase that you know is on the way will once again hurt the home buyers, put more downward pressure on the construction industry and new housing (because when you pile on all the ordinance and impact fees charged by the water district and the city of Mesquite, it's basically cheaper to build a house in Palm Springs), and all to make sure the golf course owners continue to have all the cheap water they can waste.

By the way, that water we actually drink? You know, the water that is pumped up from underground? We can't buy shares of that water, because by law it is all owned and doled out by the State of Nevada. We have to file for permits, and of course there are costs associated with that, but the water itself is 100% FREE to the VVWD.

But with the VVWD's smoke-and-mirror accounting system, that fact won't be considered in the next round of price increases.

Which is why ratepayers need to continue with their daily exercises, so they're ready when that inevitable fee increase is approved.

Mesquite 2, Bank Robbers 0

2012-01-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Bank Robbers,

You might want to rethink the idea of picking on a little town when trying to fill your pockets with ill-gotten gains.

We may be small, but we bite back.

Go back to robbing Las Vegas banks, where you have a better chance of getting away with it, and your crimes won't get nearly the attention of, say, a pedestrian getting hit in a crosswalk.

Once again, someone has taken a look at the peaceful little town of Mesquite and made the mistake of thinking us backwards and easy prey.

On Tuesday, for the second time in a little over a year, a bank in Mesquite was robbed.

And for the second time in a little over a year, the fast acting Mesquite Police Department quickly figured out who to look for and sent out the word after courageous citizens stepped forward and provided critical information. For the second time in a little over a year, the robber did not get away with it.

In November of 2010, the idiot culprit (who didn't even have a getaway car, for crying out loud) was apprehended at a bus station in St. George after the MPD notified them that the Ohio man was on his way to Utah in a taxi. Police were able to solve this one before the post-pubescent FBI agent from Las Vegas was even able to get his fancy sunglasses properly adjusted, thanks to witnesses who described the guy and helped the MPD detective (a guy named Tanner who now happens to be Mesquite's Chief of Police) piece together the thief's movements and escape plan.

On Tuesday another scumbag eyeballed Mesquite, believed he had found an easy target, and knocked over the Nevada Bank and Trust for a whopping $2,800. At least this one remembered to bring a getaway vehicle. Brave eyewitnesses were able to describe the car to police, and our first-class department knew exactly what to do with the information.

Since other police agencies know that MPD isn't prone to "crying wolf" every time someone steals a book of matches like a lot of other tiny rural departments, they were on the lookout and quick to respond.

A lot of news reports claim Tuesday's ending was "tragic" because the dirtball gave himself a lead-based brain enema rather than face up to his crime, shooting himself in the head after getting pulled over on I-15 by Arizona Highway Patrol. In truth, the only thing "tragic" is that he didn't pull the trigger on his own noggin BEFORE terrorizing innocent bank employees with threats of a bomb and a gun.

Had he known beforehand that this sleepy little burg is actually home to one of the best police departments in the state, with one of the highest "solve" rates in the nation, the Florida loser might have picked on somebody else. In fact, in December of 2009, Mesquite police took down a murderer from Indiana who had eluded every other police department in the country, earning himself a spot on the TV show "America's Most Wanted."

In late 2010, barely a year before Detective Troy Tanner became Police Chief Troy Tanner, the department was able to make two arrests in a decade-old murder. All our detective/chief needs is an inflated set of oversized, collagen-filled lips, and he could have his own "Closer" crime show on TNT.

Major kudos also go out to the Arizona cops who pulled over the thief on Tuesday. Obviously, they were risking their lives against an armed nutjob who could have easily used their craniums for target practice instead of his own.

About the only screw-up in this entire affair was the desk jockey who made the ridiculous decision to shut down all four lanes of I-15 overnight out of fear that the vehicle might have contained "hazardous materials," a banal euphemism that technically encompasses everything from nuclear weapons down to an open bottle of cough syrup. Even if the guy had a functioning meth lab in his back seat filled with every toxic chemical imaginable, was it really necessary to close the entire interstate? Nobody actually saw the explosives the hoodlum claimed to have, and even if one existed, a closure of two lanes wasn't enough room to work for your bomb squad? And since when does it take 18 hours to figure that out?

However, that snarky little observation aside, an enormous "thank you" goes out once again to the Mesquite Police Department, the "amazing little department that could." Our sincere thanks also go to the brave Arizona Highway Patrol officers. And finally, huge appreciation to the eagle-eyed community-minded witnesses with the courage to help the police catch the culprit. One of the reasons it's easier to get away with bank robberies in metropolitan places like Las Vegas is because they don't have citizens like ours.

Now if we could just get a memo out to the interloping stick-up artists out there: Don't bother coming here. We're known as the "Diamond in the Desert." And as any fourth-grader could tell these losers, a diamond is one of the hardest substances on Earth. Mesquite may sparkle and shine, but we're not going to be easy to crack.

Gustaveson Wrong Guy While Bowler Is The Right Guy For VVWD

2012-01-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

The Virgin Valley Water District held their first meeting of the year on Tuesday, and immediately made a mess of things.

Fortunately, not all of the news is bad.

On Tuesday, only three of the board members bothered to show up. As is frequently the case, Bunkerville's elected board member Kenyon Leavitt was absent. Unfortunately Bunkerville's second board member, appointee Mark McEwen, is quitting the board, and wasn't in attendance either.

That meant there was no representation for Bunkerville at a meeting where officers were appointed.

The result is that all three of the key positions on the board - president, vice president, and treasurer/secretary - will be filled by Mesquite representatives, meaning Bunkerville has been shut out of the top spots.

Since the three board members in attendance ended up delaying a decision on who to appoint to the city's Economic Development committee, the only other item on the agenda, it would have been a good idea to have scrapped Tuesday's meeting altogether until McEwen's replacement could be approved and appointed by the Clark County Commission.

To make matters worse, the three Mesquite board members in attendance repeated a horrendous mistake they made in 2010, namely the appointment of Mesquite City Councilman Karl Gustaveson as the president of the board.

There are at least a half-dozen reasons why Gustaveson is the worst of the five choices for the top job on the board. For starters, he is a paid Mesquite city councilman, which means his first loyalty is and will always be with the city. That doesn't work out so well in the real world, because the city and the water district are so often at cross purposes, and the city already abuses its smaller, weaker cousin at every turn.

Second, it is improper for the president of a quasi-public board to not be one of those elected by the people. He is appointed by the city, which means the top officer of the Virgin Valley Water District has not received the seal of approval from the electorate.

Then you have a variety of actions by Gustaveson over the last year while he was president of the VVWD that should have sent up enough warning flags to keep the board from repeating his appointment as president. Chief among them was the way the local golf course owners had their way with him like a discount Vegas hooker while arranging whatever reduced rates they pleased.

Gustaveson has done nothing to distinguish himself during his reign in 2010.

However, since the only people voting for his appointment on Tuesday were Mesquite representatives, led by his sycophant and nominator Sandra Ramaker, it's not a particular surprise.

Also, to be fair, it's not like there were that many options.

Leavitt, the longest serving member of the board, is the only elected representative from Bunkerville. However, he misses way too many meetings to seriously be considered for the top position.

The other Bunkerville representative won't be appointed until Jan. 17 at the earliest.

On the Mesquite side, making Ramaker the president would be the same as making Gustaveson the president, since they're basically the same person. If you look closely during VVWD board meetings, you could swear Gustaveson's lips are moving whenever Ramaker speaks. So if you're going to appoint a bad president, you might as well go with the original.

The other option would be Ted Miller. Miller has been the courageously outspoken defender of the ratepayers. Endowed with an abundance of common sense and occasional downright stubbornness in standing up for the little people of this community, his gruff and direct manner hasn't won him many friends inside or outside the board room. As such he would be a tough sell even though he is the second-longest serving member of the board behind Leavitt. He isn't enough of a soul-selling politician to play the games necessary to win the presidency, particularly among this collection of escapees from the island of misfit toys.

Fortunately, some good news is on the way.

Rich Bowler has been tapped as the new Bunkerville appointee to replace McEwen. McEwen wasn't a bad guy, and always made the board stop and think. His only weakness was a myopia when it came to putting the best interests of Bunkerville over the needs of the entire community. He also tended to agree with Leavitt too often, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Leavitt can be a good watchdog for the ratepayers when he bothers to show up.

Bowler will be an excellent addition to this board.

For starters, as a real estate broker, he will be the only current business person on the board.

Second, it's hard to believe how long the Virgin Valley Water District has functioned without direct input from a member of the real estate community. No facet of Mesquite's economy is as directly affected by water decisions as the real estate market, yet he will be the first full-time Realtor to sit on the board in a while.

Also, Bowler is a Bunkerville resident whose business happens to be in Mesquite. As such, he will bring the kind of balance that is needed in decision making for the entire valley.

His family has been a part of this community for decades. Bowler Elementary School in Bunkerville and the Bowler Plaza in Mesquite where Smith's Food and Drug is located are both named for his grandfather, J.L. Bowler. His father, Joe Bowler, has been a philanthropic blessing and longtime business icon in this valley for years. Yet even with those deep roots, Rich Bowler's name is rarely mentioned among the area's nefarious network of "good ole boys."

Hopefully, the "Caucus of Common Sense" including Bowler, Miller, and Leavitt will be able to keep the "Gustamaker twins" in check during the coming year.

City Gives The Finger To Citizens

2011-12-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, we posted an op-ed about the Mesquite city government slipping back into their old, secretive, behind-closed-doors ways.

We had hoped that a literary shot across the bow might wake up those purportedly in control of the city and remind them why the council has so many new faces, and why voters have been so angry for the last few years.

On Tuesday, the Mesquite city government basically told the voters "fuck you."

Longtime good old boy Kurt Sawyer, the acting City Manager, recently manufactured one of the city's classic back room moves, elevating Bryan Dangerfield from his job as Economic Development Director to fill the job of Leisure Services Director being vacated by Rich Bohne.

A lot of people believe that Bryan Dangerfield has been completely incompetent in his previous role, particularly his questionable activities involving the Desert Falls debacle. Yet instead of doing what most reasonable entities would do, terminating what appears to be a sub-par employee, he is given a promotion. He will go from supervising one person to supervising a department of dozens.

Coincidentally, the Economic Development Department may possibly be disbanded in the coming year, a department that even Sawyer admitted has "provided very few things."

Of course, it has to be another coincidence that Sawyer and Dangerfield traveled to Wyoming for a few days recently, allegedly on an invite to talk business with NCS, another company that is the latest big dreamer scheming to capitalize on the huge and valuable plot of Desert Falls land.

So Sawyer makes the call to give Dangerfield the plum position, without ever opening the position to job applicants. The job isn't posted publicly, so nobody gets a chance to apply, including some people who might actually be qualified for the gig.

Sawyer also didn't bother to involve the city council in his decision, despite the fact that he's only an "acting" city manger. Why would anyone temporarily filling a job make such a huge decision without involving his bosses?
Also, while online polls aren't very scientific or particularly accurate, last week's poll on this site asked the public whether Dangerfield should be made the new Leisure Services Director. In that poll, 24 out of the 25 respondents said "no."

It gets better.

Last week, the council rightfully decided to include an item on Tuesday's agenda regarding Dangerfield's appointment.

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, that agenda item was nowhere to be found.

So who's responsible for the item's disappearing act?

Mesquite's City Attorney.

City Attorney Cheryl Hunt once again did what she does best: finding obscure Nevada statutes to justify hiding decisions and actions from the public.

Hunt claims she found a law that says the appointment of a high ranking city official is not allowed to be on the agenda.

Huh?

It's inconceivable that any state would book a law that prohibits a city government from discussing the hiring of a key position. And if they did, an aggrieved city government should fight such lunacy.

Instead of doing what a good city attorney would do, finding a way to make sure the citizens are involved in every city process whenever possible, she once again succeeded in making sure that the citizens get ostracized and screwed.

What makes this even more bizarre is the fact that, by law, the mayor must sign off on all city contracts. But according to Hunt's claim, the mayor will have to do this one in secret, and not allow it to be discussed in an open forum.

Sounds pretty unlikely, but when your mission appears to be locating arcane rules to continuously exclude the public, you can always find a way.

Oddly, giving the finger to the public isn't the city council's fault this time. The collection of well meaning but procedurally inexperienced neophytes is being abused and taken advantage of by the more seasoned staff that they are supposed to be supervising.

Now we'll get to see what this council is made of.

There are some very real and concrete steps that must be taken.

For starters, and this has been brought up before, the current position of City Manager needs to be eliminated. It has been this city's Achilles heel for nearly a decade. The hard decisions about a city's future must be made by elected officials, not paper-pushing bureaucrats and hired hands filled with their own self-importance. In a democracy, there must be accountability.

In place of a City Manager, the city should create and appoint a City Administrator, someone who handles the day-to-day operations, but must kick all important decisions upstairs. It's not as fast or efficient a model, but is better reflective of a PUBLIC agency.

Until then, Sawyer should be removed as interim City Manager. In a perfect world, he should be fired and removed from the city's employ altogether for running this back room game, but Hunt will surely be able to find some laws to protect and justify his actions. Also, he has given Mesquite 21 years of service, and that has to count for something.

The council also needs to dramatically change the city's operational ordinances. All department directors must be approved by the city council. It will make the process more transparent, and will return the power and responsibility for the running of this city back to those who were elected to run it.

Another long overdue change is the firing of Cheryl Hunt as City Manager. She has shown repeatedly that she is not working in the best interests of transparency for the people of Mesquite. It's not all her fault. In the past she has been bullied by some powerful people at City Hall. But Mesquite needs a City Attorney who will scour the underbrush to find ways to make sure the people of this city are involved in the process, not someone skilled in finding rules to exclude them. If that means we have to make the City Attorney's position an elected one specifically aimed at protecting the peoples' interests over the bureaucrats, then so be it.

Finally, the council should find a rule or law that allows them to overturn Sawyer's decision and return Dangerfield to his previous position. Technically Dangerfield hasn't done anything to warrant being fired (although a deeper investigation into the Desert Falls deals might possibly unearth a few); and unlike the City Attorney position, he doesn't serve at the will of the council. However, he should be allowed to go down with his ship. He hasn't done a very good job running the Economic Development department. He would be legitimately eliminated once the council decides next year to euthanize this failed agency.

In Bohne's place, longtime loyal Mesquite Leisure Department employee Nick Montoya should be considered for the interim head. He has worked hard for this city, has given back to the community on his own time as a football coach, and knows the inner workings of the Rec Center and Leisure Services Department better than anyone else, including possibly Bohne himself. The position should then be opened for applicants, and a hiring process begun. If Montoya comes up anywhere near the top of that pile, he should be given the job.

So while it's tough to blame the new city council for this mess, they will be held accountable if they prove unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to clean it up and keep it from happening again.

As was proven dramatically in the spring of 2011...the people of Mesquite really are watching, and they have shown that they are willing to make the hard decisions and take action at the polls when their elected officials will not.

Economic Development Department Needs To Go

2011-12-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Economic Development Department is one of those feel-good bureaucracies that have exploded in municipal popularity over the last decade. Somehow, city and state governments got along just fine without such high-sounding agencies for centuries, but now the departments have risen in importance to where you're more likely to find a town without a head of street repair than without an Economic Development Director.

It was a cushy job back when the economy was booming. It was easy to claim economic success when someone could spill a drink, incorporate, then start earning a profit in the thrilling new drink-spilling industry.

In 2006, Mesquite was seeing about two new business ribbon-cuttings every week.

Around that same time, the city saw its three biggest non-casino employers come to town: the Do It Best distribution center, Mesa View Regional Hospital, and Sun City. Former mayor Bill Nicholes could be thanked for Do It Best and Sun City, while a collection of dedicated private citizens were mostly responsible for wooing the hospital here.

Then the bottom fell out of the national economy.

Suddenly, communities were depending on their Economic Development Departments to put on their red capes with the big "S" on the back and come to the rescue.

From coast to coast, those bogus bureaucracies were exposed for what they were - useless patronage positions filled with unqualified pencil pushers who had less business sense than your average salad bowl.

It isn't really the fault of the bureaucrat who happened to be sitting in the EDD seat when the music stopped. It's a department that, like most things which start out as a good idea by a government, is simply an incompatible concept.

Governments by nature and design are charged with providing certain community services like roads, and protecting the public. Throughout the centuries, most governments knew that their job occasionally included protecting the citizens from businesses, which is why they formulated so many laws and rules inhibiting commerce.

Then, in the last decade, governments started reversing engines and appointing EDD heads to help promote business in their communities. Aside from the gearbox damage caused by slamming such a large institution into reverse, it also provided comedic irony that only the governments failed to see - hiring bureaucrats who are gifted at developing forms in triplicate, who excel at the minutiae of policy and procedure, who have spent entire careers in the field of "No!", and who have zero experience in creating a business from scratch or fathoming the personal risks of entrepreneurship, now tasked with helping lure and start new businesses.

It would be like hiring me to serve as a city's chief surgeon. The skill set simply isn't there.

Today there is a move afoot by a group of local private citizens to try something different. The group is suggesting that the city eliminate the department and outsource the duties of enticing news businesses and assisting existing businesses to a private agency like the Mesquite Community Development Corporation. The MCDC is a group that was formed a couple of years ago by local business people, folks who actually know how to start and run a business.

This idea warrants some attention.

In most communities, the Chamber of Commerce would also be a likely candidate for helping bring in new business. Unfortunately, in Mesquite that organization has been little more than a dysfunctional social club. In fact, even the biggest business and employer in the city, the former Black gaming, quit the Chamber this year.

Mesquite's current EDD is a train wreck, and has been for some time.

Aside from the fact that it has been completely impotent in bringing new industry to town, it has also been involved in some of the city's biggest scandals.

The head of the EDD was elbow deep in the Desert Falls debacle, a failure which would have resulted in someone losing their job had they worked for a real business. In fact, after it was discovered that someone in the city allowed the Desert Falls developers to pay a large deposit with a post-dated and unfunded check, some might even say a criminal investigation was warranted. Instead, the EDD was expanded and the head of the department was given more power and authority. They also took one of the brightest stars in the city government stable, Aaron Baker, and made him the EDD head's underling. It's a waste of great talent.

Mesquite's Economic Development Department has also been a waste of time and money. Their big claim to fame? The "Mesquite Means Business" website. The city been overpaying thousands of dollars for the site's design and hosting. Also, there are pinatas that get more hits than this pitiful little slice of the internet.

For a while, the city claimed it was going to jump on the alternative energy bandwagon and bring in purveyors of solar power, solar panels, and wind technology. Today, Mesquite is trailing such mega-municipalities as Boulder City and Ivanpah. Once again our inability to become a player in this realm, despite Mesquite's perfect climate and geography for such facilities, is a failure of the EDD.

Also, for years the city has had the well-earned reputation of being anti-business, with increases to its business license fees, its rigorous licensing process with 13-page applications, and its business-unfriendly sign ordinances and zoning. Where was the EDD in all that?

The one good thing to come out of that department was an impressive video about Mesquite's golf facilities, and to a lesser degree, our casinos. However, the behind-the-scenes truth is that the video was the brainchild of a group of forward-thinking golfers and businessmen who brought the idea to the city, and also helped fund it. Which is more evidence that a privatized EDD makes sense. Also, that video has been squandered because the city's EDD simply doesn't know how to market and promote it, or the city. The proof? Where is the latest Do It Best or Sun City? The city owns a ton of land, and has even given it away in the past. How incompetent is an agency that can't even bring a new industry to town with free land to offer?

The Mesquite Economic Development Department needs to be disbanded. In these lean times of cutbacks, layoffs, and budget shortfalls, the last thing a small municipality needs is an expensive, underperforming agency. Especially when the duties could better be handled by people who actually know what they're doing.

Editor's Note - After this story was written, MesquiteCitizen.com broke the story that Economic Development Director Bryan Dangerfield will be taking over for Rich Bohne, who is leaving as the head of the city's Athletic and Leisure Department. Moving a lousy director with questionable competence from one city department to another isn't exactly what we had in mind. It also begs the question - how does the city make that decision without opening the position to a hiring process? It appears good old boy, backroom dealing is back at City Hall.

Mesquite Witch Trials For Smokers

2011-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

The City of Mesquite continues to wander unguided around the apocalyptic economic plain, desperately but aimlessly in search of an idea or identity to help resurrect its former greatness and recapture its glory as a growing, vibrant tourist destination and retirement Mecca. Those in and out of power continue seeking the mythical Holy Grail that will magically bring the throngs back to the city.

"We don't have a lot of kids or young people here, but let's build a youth sports complex, because young people LOVE flocking to places where old people live." "We don't have any transmission lines, facilities, or a technically enhanced labor pool, but let's become a player in the alternative energy game." "We don't have a majority of soccer players or fans here, and we don't have any money, but let's use $5 million worth of taxpayer money to buy a used, plastic soccer tent so thousands of those wealthy, cash-heavy, money-spending pre-teens will race to our otherwise empty sports complex."

Since we're continuing to entertain folly, here are a few more ideas for Mesquite to try:

The amphitheater in front of City Hall is rarely used other than for the annual Christmas, er, Holiday Tree lighting ceremony. In its place, let's erect some stocks. You know, those wooden contraptions from the days of the Pilgrims, where citizens' heads and hands are publicly imprisoned and subjected to target practice with rotten vegetables.

Or, still at City Hall, we can deepen the small fountain that rarely gets used anymore because of worries about the political incorrectness of an open spigot in the middle of a desert. Once we finish that municipal project, we can start selling tickets to rigged trials and public drownings. It was a successful means of ensuring the tiny town of Salem, Massachusetts remains forever in the history books, and is still a major tourism draw to this day.

And a collection of local zealots have already designated the perfect iteration of 21st century witches:

Cigarette smokers.

There is a new campaign going around town insisting that the answer to all our tourism troubles is to make Mesquite "smoke-free."

That's right, in a remarkably insightful reversal, they claim that the way to get people to come to our town is by telling a large segment of tobacco-using residents and visitors that they're not welcome here.

Brilliant.

Apparently, according to these folks (some of whom are good friends of mine), the problem with Mesquite and its casinos is that there are just too many smokers.

I don't mean to be overly dramatic or Glenn Beck-ish here, but I seem to recall a certain European country deciding that all of their economic and cultural woes could be cured with the eradication of one particular kind of citizen back in the 1930's, and if I remember correctly, that didn't turn out so well.

For the record, I am not now nor have I ever been a smoker (just in case some Marlboro McCarthy is out there checking into un-Mesquitian activities). However, my wife is a smoker, and my father was a lifetime smoker, so maybe I'm guilty by association - a smoker-in-law.

I'm sure that my dad's nicotine habit contributed to his death. But the bigger culprit was diabetes. Yet I don't see a lot of these "we're gonna tell you how to live" activists marching around with "Ban Twinkies" or "Secondhand Creme Filling Is A Killer" signs.

I also don't have any patience with people who claim employees at casinos, bars, and (used to be) restaurants shouldn't be subjected to secondhand smoke.

For starters, I believe secondhand smoke is about as real as global warming, vampires, and the heterosexuality of Ryan Seacrest.

But more importantly, we've forgotten an important truth in a capitalistic society: customers don't gather in a place simply to create jobs for employees; employees are hired to serve customers who gather. Customers should be welcomed and served, not discriminated and dictated. There isn't a single waitress, bartender, roulette roller, or blackjack dealer in Nevada who took a job not knowing that some of those customers will be smokers.

Personally, I'm beginning to feel like Martin Niemoller, the guy who coined the famous phrase that includes the line "then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew." I'm not a smoker, but I'm sick and tired of watching smokers being used as political pinatas by an arrogant collective who wants to impose their will on other people who are simply minding their own business and trying to get on with their lives. Smokers have been kicked out of the workplace, kicked out of the sports arenas, kicked out of the restaurants, and basically kicked out of all public places for purchasing and using a legal, highly-taxed substance; a commodity which was essential to this country's founding and early economic success, and continues to fill state and federal coffers with plenty of coin.

But that's not enough for this new crop of zealots. Now they want to run these people completely out of our town, like lepers whose waterfront colony has become too valuable. "Give up smoking or relocate."

Mesquite already has the undeserved national reputation of being a "mean town."

Is this really the message we want to send out to people seeking a good time? That if they smoke, they are a scourge and should avoid our town? That we are such a judgmental collection of people that we would really parse out the smokers and exclude them from our gaming and drinking establishments?

I pray not. I don't think I could live in such a city.

But if this is truly the track that Mesquite wants to follow, at least it gives City Hall one more new event that would be a sure draw for the soon-to-be-erected plastic tent.

All the zealots need to do is round up a few smokers every week and take them to the spectator-filled tent (which would have a sign hanging on the flap that says "Coliseum").

Then, just add lions.

City Council Report Card

2011-11-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

The new Mesquite City Council has been in place for nearly five months. In that time, a lot of their effort has been spent undoing the mischief and mess left behind by the previous regime. For the most part, they've made sound decisions. More importantly, with one glaring exception, they've been doing an exceptional job at providing the much-needed transparency for which citizens have been clamoring, and appear to be more willing to listen to the people.

As a unit, the council appears to be very functional, without the suspicious trend of 5-0 votes that marred the previous council with the stench of back-room deal making.

One of their most noble votes was the approval of the election cycle change which will move the city elections from June of odd years to November of even years. Most of the new council members campaigned against the move, but voted in favor of it after the citizens expressed their desire during June's non-binding referendum, indicating their preference that the dates be changed. The council voted the will of the people instead of insisting "we know what's best for you."

With the end of the year fast approaching, here is our "report card" on the Mesquite City Council.

Councilman Kraig Hafen - A+

The best thing about Hafen is the fact that he has done exactly what he promised to do when elected. He has asked hard questions, done his homework on issues, and applied the kind of almost unnatural common sense that is completely absent from nearly every level of government. He has also put his money where his mouth is. He dug into his own pocket to pay for a bus so Mesquite residents could go to and be heard at the Regional Transportation Commission meeting regarding local bus service. He doesn't open his microphone unless he has something to say, and he says it in a passionate, concise, well-thought-out fashion. Best of all, he has managed to maintain a careful balance between representing the citizens and representing the businesses, an almost impossible dance to maintain.

Councilman George Rapson - A

Rapson is easily the biggest and most welcome surprise on the council. He is usually first to talk about an agendized issue, lets everyone know what he is thinking on an issue and why, and offers broad spectrum analysis that shows he has researched the issues and asked questions. A lot of people said he ran for office just because he needed a job. If that's true, we should be thankful we were able to get someone with his energy, wisdom, intelligence, and courage for the pittance we actually pay him. The only area of concern is his connection to the Solstice liars, and his friendliness with the NCS crew. So far, he has abstained when necessary, and continued to represent the people first. Citizens need to remain vigilant, particularly on his stance defending NCS and their pet projects, as well as the proposed "sports tent" that would benefit them. But he has shown himself to be something special, welcome, and needed on the council.

Councilman Al Litman - C+

Litman is Mesquite City Council's Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Away from the council chambers, Al is outspoken, talkative, passionate, and ready to take on the world in his crusades. On the council, he's the lamb that rarely offers an opinion; is timid and sometimes confused when he does; and doesn't always seem to have a grasp on the issues. Occasionally it seems as if the first time he has bothered to open his council packet is when he arrived at the dais that night. He has also shown little leadership up there. However, to his credit, he continues to be a principled man and advocate looking out for the best interest of the citizens. As time goes on, he will be an important counterweight to the overwhelmingly pro-developer lineup currently on the council. Hopefully, as he gains more comfort and confidence in his seat, he'll become more vocal and better prepared.

Councilman Geno Withelder - D

If there's a golf tournament to be held, Geno is your man. Also, as you would expect from a Realtor and broker representing one of the most successful development and real estate agencies in the city, he is very pro-developer. That's not necessarily a bad thing in a city that still has a lot of growing to do. But while Rapson favors some of the developers, it's clear that Withelder is deeply in the pocket of the development community. That's not to say he's been bought off - he hasn't. It's simply in his nature and job description to champion any and every project and move favored by big developers. People also need to keep a very close eye on his relationship with NCS. The bad news is that if it comes down between what's best for businesses/developers and what's best for the people of Mesquite, Withelder will likely side with the developers every time. The good news is that, unless the discussion involves a golf tournament, he rarely bothers to participate or speak up. If the developers are going to have a friend on the council, the people are lucky that it's the quiet guy.

Councilman Karl Gustaveson - F+

No surprise here. Gustaveson is the last vestige remaining from one of the worst regimes this city has ever seen. He is an arrogant, opinionated blowhard who thinks more of his own opinion than anyone else's on the planet, and leaves no room for perspective or input from anyone outside his circle. And his circle continues to include former mayor Susan Holecheck. Worse, his position on the Virgin Valley Water District board is downright dangerous to the people of Mesquite. The smartest move the city could make would be to remove Gustaveson as the city's representative on the VVWD board and replace him with former VVWD president Kraig Hafen. That said, Gustaveson still serves an important purpose on the Mesquite City Council. He is the fly in the ointment that guarantees fewer 5-0 votes. And that's a good thing. He has been and will continue to be the lone opposition on a lot of issues. It's extremely important and healthy for an elected government to have someone who consistently says "yeah, but..." One other positive about Gustaveson is the fact that, while he is usually way wrong-headed on the issues, he is honest in his opinions. He is virtually incorruptible. When he votes, he is doing it from an anti-business, anti-freedom agenda steeped in the firm belief that "I know what's best for you." But it's never about what's in it for him, or what he has to gain. He won't bend, he refuses to "go along to get along," and that's an admirable trait. It's just a shame that all that ferocity and courage is spent on trying to control the people instead of trying to serve them.

Mayor Mark Wier - B

Wier has been the same somewhat shy guy who campaigned quietly and gave the city a dramatic change from the egocentric leadership that previously dominated the mayor's office. He does not have a forceful personality, although he used to be a lot more passionate and opinionated before he earned the title "mayor." One thing he still does behind the scenes is deep research, particularly of the Nevada Revised Statutes. The guy knows his state law, often better than Mesquite's City Attorney. His quieter approach is also a welcome relief from the back room gamesmanship that previously defined the city council. He is more of an arbitrator than a leader. During the first six months, that's probably exactly what this city and this council needed. However, he needs to step up his game in the next year. Mesquite continues to founder in the economic storm. To hope that the ship will right itself is naive. It will take leadership and vision. The jury is still out on whether Wier possesses either, or can muster support and lead the charge in any particular direction. We need him to stand up and say "here's where we're going, here's why, and here's how we're going to get there." Hopefully that will come in January's State of the CIty Address. Knowing Wier, he will put a lot of thought and research into that speech, and will seek input from a wide variety of people and sources. There have been complaints that he is less than diligent in returning calls and e-mails to inquisitive citizens. However, voters knew this would be a weakness when they elected someone who works for a living instead of selecting someone who would take on the mayor's position full time. It's not really his fault. He has a stressful, demanding full time job, a wife and children, and all the obligations that real people must face. The upside is that, under his administration, the volume of contacts and complaints is probably much lower than before, because he has eradicated most of the controversy and causes for people to be angry enough to contact City Hall. To his credit, Wier has done more to promote transparency and openness in the Mesquite government in his short time than any mayor before him. He has opened the technical reviews to the public, always allows citizens to have their say at council meetings (even if those comments go longer than three minutes), and has worked hard and successfully at changing the title of his board from "the" city council to "our" city council. For that reason alone, he is to be applauded and commended. He is a very good mayor so far. The fact that he has room for a little bit of improvement means his future may be even better.

Overall Mesquite City Council - B+

The funny thing is, this mix of unique characters and opposing viewpoints actually works extremely well. The long, unbroken chain of 5-0 votes is gone. Discussion and debate takes place openly on the dais (with the notable and shameful exception of the Nov. 8 meeting in which the council went behind closed doors with the City Attorney before rendering an abrupt and unexplained decision on the ill-advised Solstice debt). They have gone a long way toward undoing the harmful folly of their predecessors, including the opening of the technical reviews to the public, the elimination of the restrictive and manipulative "Code of Conduct" that was previously used to go after a former councilwoman, and the recent change that allows the Boy Scouts to resume their annual door-to-door food drive after being banned for the last three years. This council actually listens to the people, even if it doesn't always vote accordingly. They don't appear to have an unstated agenda or back room consensus when they show up, and they don't display any signs of being manipulated or smacked into line. It's odd to say about a group that has no women and no minorities among its number, but it is a very diverse collection. That diversity and independence is a terrific thing for the people of this community. While we disagree with the council on a number of issues, including the handling of Solstice; the forward movement on an indoor sports facility we can't afford; the continuing cowardice in refusing to stand up to the feds regarding the Habitat Conservation and Rehabilitation Plan extortion; and the retention of at least four high-ranking city staff members who are ineffective, incompetent, and in way over their heads, we believe strongly in this council and its approach. Mesquite finally has what it wanted and deserves - a council that listens to and represents the people. We once again have a council we can be proud of. A great big round of applause and pat on the back goes to the Mesquite City Council.

Water District Board Must Be Overhauled

2011-11-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, whining and whisperings begin over the way the Virgin Valley Water District is formulated.

Specifically, the call occasionally goes out insisting on changes in the way the five members of the governing board are selected.

Currently, the people of Mesquite elect two board members, while the people of Bunkerville elect one member.

Another Mesquite board member is selected and appointed by the Mesquite City Council, usually choosing one of the council members to fill the slot.

The final spot is filled by the Clark County Commissioners, after recommendations from the Bunkerville Town Advisory Board.

The problem with that arrangement is that 40% of the board is not directly answerable to the people.

That reality was highlighted again on Tuesday night.

The contentious issue of adding another surcharge to the LONG list of permit fees, impact fees, connection fees, and various other costs involved in signing up for water was the topic. This one wasn't exactly the water district's idea. It was a pure and simple case of extortion by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies to hammerlock builders and newcomers to the valley into paying a fee for a nebulous, undefined program for "endangered species."

Unfortunately, the only species endangered in this scenario is the "Overtaxed Overburdened Cost-Dissuaded Homeowning Newbie," a genre of new resident moving into Mesquite that will become all but extinct thanks to the new $166 fee approved on Tuesday that will be added to the City's $500 fee for new homes and businesses. All of the money is supposedly for the Habitat Conservation and Rehabilitation Plan, a government slush fund for a program that currently isn't even finished and that doesn't begin to specify where and how the money will ultimately be spent.

On Tuesday, the feds again explained that without that fee, they would make it almost impossible to develop future construction projects in Mesquite. No matter how you slice it, as Bunkerville water board member Kenyon Leavitt reiterated, it's a criminal practice of extortion that would lead to jailtime if it were attempted by anyone except Uncle Sam.

For the last few months, Leavitt and heroic board member Ted Miller have courageous fought against the fee.

On Tuesday, mostly because of the citizen-unfriendly makeup of the board, the fee finally passed.

In the final 3-2 vote, Miller and Leavitt did their job, representing and defending the people of this valley.

Unfortunately, current VVWD board president and Mesquite city councilman Karl Gustaveson led the charge in pushing this fee through. The City of Mesquite made no secret of the fact they desperately wanted the water district to impose this fee, and the G-man is THEIR man. Gustaveson, who it seems never met an anti-development fee he didn't like, could make that vote because he does not have to face the wrath of the voters in order to keep his seat on the Virgin Valley Water District board.

He does have to face the voters to stay on the Mesquite City Council in 2013, but he has about as much chance of being re-elected as a desert tortoise does of winning the Daytona 500. In fact, rumors are swirling that he won't even bother to face the embarrassment of running for re-election. It's a smart move, judging from the way his best political friend (former Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck) got humiliated after gaining only about 20% of the vote in her 2011 re-election bid.

The other untouchable board member is Mark McEwen, who was picked by the Clark County Commission to replace Cecil Leavitt. He doesn't have to pay a price for Tuesday's bad decision, because he isn't accountable to the voters.

The third member actually is accountable. However, since her election last year, board member Sandra Ramaker has shown that if board president Karl Gustaveson takes a crap, she'll be the one there to wipe. (And that's exactly what the two of them did on Tuesday - took a big dump on the people of this valley). Whatever Gustaveson wants done, it appears she is his sycophant.

We can only hope the people of Mesquite won't pull our famous amnesia act and forget harmful actions like this when her name reappears on the ballot in 2014. Hopefully, the board will also show better sense and not appoint this power-hungry seat seeker (she is next in line to head the Mesquite Chamber of Commerce, despite the fact that she doesn't own a business here) as the board president when Gustaveson is ousted in 2013.

But this is bigger than one 3-2 vote on one case of federal extortion.

It's really a question of whether democracy has a place here.

There is no way that the second most powerful governmental agency in the Virgin Valley should be structured with appointed officials. This agency has the power to essentially levy taxes with their fees and rates, and controls the most important and valuable resource in the desert - water. Any body with that kind of power must be answerable to the people. That means all of the board members, not just a little over half of them, should be elected.

This will take an action from the Nevada State Legislature, which originally created the VVWD.

With the next session of the legislature not scheduled until 2013, we have time to start petitioning and requesting that this issue be put on the senate and assembly agendas. Unfortunately, because of redistricting, we don't even know who our representatives will be in the legislature until after the 2012 election. The good news is, this should be an important campaign issue in that 2012 run-up. The people of this valley should make sure that every time one of the senate or assembly wannabes show up for a fund raiser or campaign stop, the question of changing the makeup of the Virgin Valley Water District gets pressed.

The hard part will be keeping old arguments from festering to the surface and killing this initiative, particularly the question of who gets to vote for whom. There is a good argument to be made for making all five board members "at large" candidates, meaning they all get voted on by everyone in Mesquite and Bunkerville instead of the current setup where the people of Bunkerville vote for one board member, and the people of Mesquite vote for two other board members. With an "at large" setting, it's possible that Bunkerville could wind up without anyone from their town on the board, which is unacceptable.

For now at least, the best approach would be to simply change the rules so two of the board members are elected by Bunkerville, and three are elected by Mesquite.

No matter how the final balance comes out, it's time to fix this abomination to thinking and voting people in the Virgin Valley. We need to be able to hold all of these board members accountable. It's our destiny, it should be up to us to decide whose hands rest on that tiller.

City Council Takes First Step Down Same Old Secret Path In Solstice Debacle

2011-11-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

The site of the promised Solstice hotel and casino at
Falcon Ridge and Pioneer remains as unbuilt today as it did
when this photo was taken in 2008.

Just when it looked like the Mesquite City Council was showing itself to be something special, something the people of this city could be proud of, the council returned to the old, secret, behind-closed-doors practice of making decisions away from the public's eyes.

On Tuesday, the council tackled just one more remnant of the failed Susan Holecheck administration when it discussed the ill-advised $2.5 million loan to Solstice during the Redevelopment Agency board meeting which preceded the regular city council meeting.

The loan was a horrendous idea when the previous council voted to take the huge chunk of money out of the city's RDA fund.

The fund, created by an act of the state legislature specifically for Mesquite, was originally intended to renovate and improve the city's downtown business district.

In 2009, the city initially tried to just give the money directly to Solstice to build a road to their high-end trailer park just past the Mesa View Regional Hospital.

Of all the things Solstice and their owners Barcelona Partners promised to build when they bought city-owned land for a fraction of its value back in 2006, the trailer park is the only thing they've actually built. The 20-story hotel, casino, shopping plaza, and housing development originally touted by Solstice back when they were playing Pied Piper at civic clubs and public gatherings to gain the support of the community were never even begun.

Some of the land obtained by Barcelona Partners for the project has since been foreclosed on by lenders after the company ran up debts that were higher than the original purchase price of the property.

The land where the luxury motor home park is located is still owned by Solstice and Barcelona. For now.

In 2009, when the city figured out they couldn't give away RDA money to a private entity for a project that was nowhere near the city's downtown business district, the administration figured out how to use some loopholes and get around the RDA rules by making the $2.5 million a "loan" to build the road that was supposed to be the responsibility of Solstice, according to their own development deal with the city.

It was a galactically stupid decision, particularly considering Solstice was already showing signs of economic trouble, in addition to the fact that they hadn't built any of the hotel or casino projects they had promised when the city sold its rodeo arena to the company. Now we have no rodeo in Mesquite, a longtime tradition that pre-dates the city's founding, and we don't have the stores or entertainment venues the company promised.

On Tuesday, the council considered Barcelona's request to "restructure" the loan, now that they've missed the last two semi-annual payments.

At first, the council debated whether foreclosure would be an option, but quickly figured out just how stupid they had been in floating a loan on property that already had two lenders ahead of us (another red flag that was ignored in 2009).

Then the city asked for more information on Barcelona's financial situation. The company refused to release the numbers, claiming it was "proprietary information."

Sound familiar?

Throughout the catastrophically flawed Desert Falls fiasco, that term was thrown out every time the citizens asked for more info on their funding (which, it turned out, didn't exist).

Can you imagine any bank accepting the "we can't tell you our financial situation because it's proprietary information" stall when deciding whether to renegotiate a defaulted loan? Not hardly.

So instead of pushing through with foreclosure or a restructured payment schedule, the council took a "time out" on Tuesday to meet behind closed doors with the city attorney.

Just like the most insidious days of the former mayor's regime, the council then returned and quickly voted to "use any reasonable, available remedies in consultation with outside counsel to satisfy the debt that is owed to the City of Mesquite," without further explanation.

The first problem is they made a decision outside the public arena. That $2.5 million is OUR money, so our government needs to be very open in how they plan to get it back.

Second, the motion is so vague that it allows a ton of wiggle room and negotiations that will be done quietly in the back rooms of city offices instead of on the council floor, where it belongs.

Sadly, this is what lawyers like to call the "slippery slope." Once a government starts going down this secretive road, it is almost impossible for it to break the habit.

The people of Mesquite should be angry and disappointed that once again, their elected officials are saying "trust us, we know what's best" instead of doing their job of representing the people, in front of the people.

At some point, we can only hope that state investigators get off their duffs and start looking at the details of this shady deal, going all the way back to 2006, with special emphasis on the use of RDA money for a project outside the RDA area. It's unlikely that the state would take kindly to the city thumbing its nose at their rules.

About the only thing that's funny or ironic is the fact that, months after Holecheck, most of her council cronies, and her ringleader Tim Hacker are gone, that administration has posthumously found a way to do what they couldn't do in 2009 - find a way to give RDA money to that private entity without the city ever getting paid back.

Gas Prices Better In Mesquite

2011-11-02T08:31:00.001-07:00

Prices have gone down even further in Mesquite since
Friday, dropping to $3.25 as of Wednesday morning.

While traveling to Las Vegas last week, something I am loathe to do, I received a pleasant and very welcome surprise.

Sometimes along the way on I-15, I will stop at the new Love's truck stop for fuel.

Last week, I noticed the price of regular gas was $3.69 a gallon.

Fortunately, I didn't need gas, so I was able to pass up this price.

Once into North Las Vegas, I checked the sign on Craig Road for the Pilot truck stop, a fueling station that I use almost every time I visit Sin City.

Their posted price for regular gasoline was $3.49 a gallon.

That was a much better deal.

However, I didn't need gas, so I didn't partake.

The reason I didn't need gas is because I filled up at the Smith's in Mesquite on the corner of Sandhill Boulevard and Hillside Drive.

There, gasoline on Friday was $3.26 a gallon.

That's not a typo.

It's hard to believe that after all these years of growling and grumbling about the price of gas in our little microwaved slice of Heaven, fuel fees are finally becoming competitive.

The Smith price was even less than the Pilot truck stop in St. George, which is usually the bellwether for gas prices in the area. Pilot's price was $3.45 per gallon.

It's a gratifying change.

While working in the newspaper business in Mesquite over the last eight years, I frequently did stories on runaway gas prices in our town. Most of those stories required a quick stop at the gas station on the corner of Sandhill and Hillside for a photo, because the sign at what was then a Chevron station usually boasted one of the highest prices in town. The price gouging wasn't just a reflection of this big oil participant, although Chevron is usually among the most expensive gas in Mesquite. I always believed the ripoff factor was elevated because of the station's close proximity to the interstate exit. The price at Sandhill and Hillside was regularly the highest among the three Chevron stations in town.

Now, that same corner under the Smith's banner consistently boasts the lowest price in the 89027 zip code.

Prior to Smith's arrival, the low-price battle was usually between the Maverik just down the street and the Terrible's at the corner of Mesquite Boulevard and Riverside Road.

These days, it's hard to know which of the three stations is the catalyst for the price drop, because as soon as the price goes down at Smith's, Maverik is quick to follow. Or perhaps it's vice versa, with Smith's following Maverik's lead.

For example, last Friday, the price for gas at the big M convenience store was also $3.26 per gallon.

Whichever way the flow goes for low price supremacy, it's a major win for local consumers.

Part of the victory can be attributed to one of the core tenets of capitalism, which is the fact that competition breeds better service and lower prices. Because there is so much collusion between the big oil players like Exxon, Chevron, and Shell, (all of which reported incredibly high multi-billion dollar profits in the third quarter of this year, including Exxon's $10.3 billion windfall), it's rare to see a low price posted on one of their signs.

On the other hand, the smaller gasoline purveyors continue the American tradition of trying to beat the other guy's price. This downward pressure is a positive for our town.

In fact, I wish there was a way we could get this message out to the potential visitors whizzing by our interstate exits, and residents of neighboring towns. It would be a huge boon for the community if we could somehow let those travelers know that not only is Mesquite a fun place to stop, with our casinos, bowling alley, golf courses, movie theaters, and friendly people, it's also a place to find a good deal on fuel.

It's sort of like the "loss leader" technique often used by big retailers: Lure the customer in with an insanely low price on one popular item, and more than make up the difference with all the other buys the person will make while they're there.

Unfortunately, that strategy will never catch so long as the Rebel station at exit 122 and the Chevron Travel Center at exit 120 continue to commit mercantile rape on visitors with their outrageous gas prices at their high visibility posts at the two entryways to our city.

But we can blast our good gas news about Smiths and Maverik to everyone in our Facebook lineup and e-mail address book (along with driving directions on how to bypass Chevron and Rebel), letting friends and acquaintances know that Mesquite is the place to go for low gas prices.

So after years of complaining about our place in the gas price pecking order, I want to thank Smith's, Maverik, and Terrible's for treating Mesquite residents right, and bringing some sanity back to an overpriced commodity. We appreciate you.

To my friends and neighbors, I encourage you to bury your Chevron card deep in your wallet and take your cars to one of these three low-priced options. If we don't support their efforts with our dollars by ensuring they sell in enough quantity to keep their prices low, we won't be in a position to complain when the prices go back to big oil levels.

And be sure to tell your friends and neighbors here and outside Mesquite that we are the area's low price leaders in gasoline.

VVWD Needs To Fight Back Against Federal Extortion

2011-10-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Virgin Valley Water District has been dancing around the issue of a new fee for the Habitat Conservation and Recovery Plan, particularly how much to charge for it.

Currently, A $500 HCRP fee is already included in the myriad of impact fees and surcharges levied against developers and home builders by the City of Mesquite.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requiring this fee.

Now, they want more from the Virgin Valley Water District.

It's double dipping, plain and simple.

Worse, the feds are using strong arm tactics to force the water district to add this fee.

In 2008, I attended a water board meeting in which a representative from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was as blatant in his extortion as I've ever seen. He point blank told the board that if they didn't impose this fee, they would have a hard time getting any more wells drilled or pipes laid in the area. That's because, as the rep explained, the feds would require what's called a "Section 7 Consult" for any future work. It's a protracted review process that can tie up a project for months, if not years. At that meeting, the rep said that if the water district imposed the fee, the feds wouldn't require the consult. He also said that, if the water district didn't do this, the feds would also do a "Jeopardy" filing on any future water projects in the area, another review process that could delay a project.

For the last few years, the water district has held off imposing the fees, mostly because there haven't been any new water applications coming in. As long as we're not building homes or businesses, or drilling wells, there is no compelling reason to take care of this.

But the hope for this community is eventually people will again want to start building here.

So the district board has been trying to figure out how to impose the lowest possible fee and still make their federal blackmailers happy.

The amount of the fee is problematic. The feds say a fee must be imposed, and placed into an account, but they don't say how much of a fee, how big the account has to be, or even what that money will be used for.

Think about that.

We are basically being forced to pay a fee to fund a program that doesn't even have a plan for how the money will get spent. "Just gather the money, we'll figure out what to do with it later" is basically the process.

This is extortion. There is simply no other word for it. And the extortionists are getting away with it because they are the federal government. While we pretend to be a democracy "of the people, by the people, for the people," the truth is that the feds always hold all the cards.

So the water district is left in the unenviable task of being forced to be the bagman for the USFWS, making their "collections" like the bent-nose guys going from shopkeeper to shopkeeper to gather their "protection" money.

For the last two months, the water district has been struggling to decide how much is enough.

At the last VVWD meeting, a city official showed up and pleaded with the board to get this done and start making their "payments." It felt like a cowardly shoemaker begging the fruit stand owner to pay up, afraid the Mafia is going to torch the whole block if this last holdout doesn't get on board.

It's sickening.

Next week, the VVWD board will take up this sticky question again.

So, how much should they pay?

To quote from the extortionists playbook, the answer comes from Michael Corleone himself, in Godfather II.

"My offer is this: nothing."
We shouldn't agree to charging one thin dime.

The feds, the city, and the water district have already squeezed landowners and developers to death with their impact fees, connection fees, plan review fees, and dozens of other taxes and expenses. To add one more fee to the cost of building a home makes it that much less appealing for anyone to build here, or to buy here.

It will be one more nail in Mesquite's coffin.

The water district should follow the lead of board member Ted Miller, who has been adamant in his refusal to bend over for the feds. He is a hero, one of the few politicians still willing to stand up for the people.

If the feds want to push this issue, then the answer should be simple and firm:

See you in court.

There are times when public money must be spent to defend and protect the public.

This is one of those times.

The water district has one of the best attorneys in Southern Nevada. If he's not enough, go hire some more attorneys.

Yes, it will be more expensive than simply imposing the fees, but sometimes the right thing to do is to fight, even if it costs you. Principle must be upheld. More importantly, somebody has to stand up to these leech-like bullies and stop them, or else they'll simply continue to squeeze little communities like ours because we've shown ourselves repeatedly to be pushovers.

They say you can't fight City Hall. The truth is, City Hall can fight City Hall, and that's what this would be: a battle between government agencies.

Hopefully, word would get out to the rest of the state and the rest of the country: "Look at this extortion being perpetrated by the federal government." As Michael Corleone said in Godfather I, "the press would love a story like that."

It's time for us to stand up and tell the feds "no."

We cannot back down against hoodlums looking to hurt our town.

Not even when the hoodlums are dressed in red, white, and blue.

City Requires Fee To Allow Animals To Have Sex

2011-10-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

If this handsome fella lives in Mesquite, he
needn't bother getting prettied up for a date.
Unless his owner has a city permit that
will allow him to have sex.

In order for your pet to legally have sex, the City of Mesquite requires a permit. And of course, a fee.

I'm not making this up.

While visiting a local veterinarian this week, I noticed a sign posted on the counter. The sign advised that Mesquite City Code 10-7 requires all dogs and cats in the city to be spayed or neutered.

Like so many lousy laws, it's obvious this one started as a good idea, but has gone horribly awry.

It's commendable that a city wants to keep its stray animal population in check. Mesquite can be proud that we have not one but two different organizations dedicated to stray or abandoned pets.

It's also responsible pet ownership and good sense to have your dog or cat spayed or neutered if you don't plan to intentionally breed them.

But mandatory forced sterilization seems a little extreme, even for Mesquite.

So when I got home, I looked it up on the city's website and found that the law went into effect in March of 2010.

Stop and think about this.

For decades, the mantra has been "whatever consulting adults want to do in the privacy of their own home..." Apparently, that freedom doesn't apply to animals.

Unless you get a special license, you can't breed your dog or cat. So by city law, no matter how adorable Rover might be, he's the end of the line. No cute puppies or kittens.

Oh, you can have a cute puppy or kitten if you buy it from the city's shelter or We Care For Animals. Otherwise, forget it.

If you're caught with a virile, unfixed canine or feline, you will get fined $225 for the first offense. That's right, if your Golden Retriever gets caught doing the Humpty Dance, YOU will pay a fine for your pet's indiscretion.

To be fair, there are exceptions.

If it's a city-owned pet, like a police dog, the rule doesn't apply. (Judging by the allegations of sexual misconduct involving a couple of officers a few years ago, maybe it's not the police dog the city needs to worry about neutering.)

Also, the four-footed inmates in the city's animal shelter are exempt from the law.

Is anyone surprised that a city law doesn't apply to the city?

The third exemption is for pets that a veterinarian has ruled can't have the surgery for medical reasons.

It's the fourth exemption that puts Mesquite in the tawdry position of permitting pets to have carnal knowledge if someone is willing to put up the cash.

You can pay $25 for a "dog fancier" or "cat fancier" permit that will allow your pet to remain "intact" and free to fornicate.

Sounds a little too "Mustang Ranch" for me. (For those new to Nevada, let me just say the Mustang Ranch in Storey County has nothing to do with horses). You pay a fee to someone at the city (a guy in a purple wide-brimmed feathered hat, maybe?) so your tom can get down with whatever kitty catches his attention. That is, if the kitty's keeper has paid a similar fee to the pimp. I mean, the city.

All joking aside, this is another example of a horrendous, intrusive law that goes way too far. It crosses a resident's threshold and dictates what goes on in someone's home with their own property, in this instance a pet. Licensing cars is one thing, because they travel on city or state-owned roads. Requiring special permits to allow someone to breed their own pets on their own property is crossing a dangerous line.

Since the new city council has been busy the last couple of months undoing all the ridiculous decisions and stupid laws put on our books by the previous administration (more than a few of which were approved simply because "<fill in the blank> city does it,") maybe this is another one they could add to their long list.

In this instance, it's not the dogs and cats that need to be "fixed."

Big Tent Bid Means City Just Slower In Going Over The Cliff

2011-10-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

The fabric building at the CasaBlanca is smaller than
the one proposed for the Regional Park.

The Mesquite City Council voted on Tuesday to put the Big Tent idea out to bids.

For those who are just getting back into town, the "Big Tent" is the latest desperate grasp at straws by people claiming to have the best interest of local business owners at heart. It's a used fabric building that is currently being utilized as a shelter for airplane construction, a long way from Mesquite.

The idea is to buy it for $2-3 million, bring it to Mesquite, and put it up on some land near the soccer fields in the Mesquite Sports and Events Complex (what is known by longtime residents as the Regional Park).

Then, it can be used as an indoor facility for soccer games and other sporting events, allowing the city to have such events during the summer when even lizards want to head north for the summer to escape the desert's brutal 115-degree heat.

Where supporters want to put it is poetic. They could even name it the "Desert Falls Solstice Soccer Tent" in honor of the two failed projects that were once slated for locations next to or down the street from the proposed location.

The general idea isn't a bad one.

But as always, the devil is in the details.

Mesquite needs a new draw, since the struggling casinos appear to have abandoned their previous roles as promoters of the city and providers of shows and events to bring people here. After the heady days when the CasaBlanca's own tent once brought in acts like Kenny Rogers, Clint Black, Wynonna, Travis Tritt, and even Larry the Cable Guy, today they don't even bother with guys like Don Williams and the Bellamy Brothers from the ATSA tour. (ATSA="Are They Still Alive?")

And that should be the first warning sign.

The tent (events center) at the CasaBlanca is getting used once or twice a month, despite the fact that the casinos have a deeply vested interest in bringing visitors to Mesquite. If they can't do any better than that when they have a dedicated staff motivated and experienced in bringing events to the community, what chance does the City of Mesquite have with their history of being extremely inept in developing and promoting their own events? The City has absolutely no one on their staff qualified to take this on, especially not in the Economic Development department which will likely get this task tossed on their desk.

The first answer that might jump to mind is "let's go out and hire someone to do this."

That's right, at a time when the city continues to lay off long term and talented individuals, let's go spend $75,000 a year to hire someone? Or even worse, take the lazy way out that this city seems to love doing, which is to hire another high-priced outside consultant?

And that leads to a simple truth that a handful of zealots inside and outside City Hall refuse to acknowledge:

We just don't have the money.

The big talk is to raid MORE money from the RDA redevelopment fund that is supposed to be earmarked for "rehabilitating blighted areas." It seems that everyone in Mesquite except councilman Karl Gustaveson understands that area to be downtown Mesquite, which is currently overrun with vacant stores and half-empty shopping centers, including two that are currently in horrendous shape and in dire need of makeovers. That is what the RDA money is legally and morally intended for.

Then, beyond the $2-3 million to buy and erect the thing, there will be significant maintenance costs in the upkeep of a fabric building, costs that wouldn't exist with a more traditional concrete or steel structure (not to mention the fact that a steel or concrete structure would last longer, giving us a better return on the dollar).

Another thing that keeps coming up is the location. While Gustaveson and other council members claim that "most" of the people they've heard from support the project (which is the exact opposite of what I've found, that all but two people I've spoken with oppose the idea), the think I keep hearing from opponents is that the location will not help the downtown and local businesses, which is what the council members claim is their biggest motivation.

Because of the remote location which is bordered on two sides by large residential neighborhoods, and the lack of public transportation to that address, opponents claim it won't lead to much of an uptick in business. I don't know that I agree with that, but I do agree that the boon would be much more significant if the tent were pitched in the middle of town.

Where, you might ask? Well, we have this big patch of dirt downtown that was originally purchased for an obscene price almost across the street from City Hall by the previous council, allegedly for a new library that is extremely unlikely to ever be built. Putting a large indoor facility there would be a true boost to the downtown area, and would instantly change former councilman Randy Ence from goat to hero.

Another question that keeps nagging at opponents is the involvement of NCS, a developer with out-of-state roots that has never built a single thing they promised to build in Mesquite, despite the fact that the city has gift-wrapped not one but two huge parcels of land at fire sale prices in the last decade.

Haven't we had enough of carpet baggers like Solstice and Desert Falls rolling into town and promising the moon, only to deliver larger and larger piles of nothing? Speaking of which, we should have zero interest in building another facility to help out the Long Drivers organization. We've already built them a first-class driving range with tax dollars, only to be rewarded by having to come up with another $50,000 a year in payoffs to the organizers to keep them coming here.

If we truly want to have a large event facility (and I fervently believe that as a town trying to be a tourist destination, this is an absolute must), let's partner up with some folks we know.

The new owners of the CasaBlanca, Virgin River, Oasis, and Mesquite Star are obviously cash poor right now, but they could certainly find funds for a project that would benefit them, especially if they're not carrying all the risk. On the other end of town, the Lee family has been here for a long time, and they have proven their devotion to this community over and over and over. If the city wants to partner up with someone to build a large, permanent facility almost dead center between the two casino areas, it would seem more logical to become partners with business people who are already here, who have already invested heavily in our community, and have proven they can actually accomplish something. With the combination of those three, taxpayers wouldn't have to carry the whole load. Also, the staff to market and promote the facility would be built-in, coming from not one but two casinos that are both known for having tremendous prowess and experience in promotions and events.

It would also help get Mesquite back on track to "finding itself."

We have forgotten who we are as a community, a tourist and retirement destination. While dreams of making Mesquite a Mecca for soccer or other youth sports sounds exciting, the reality is that kids and senior citizens don't mix well. Bringing kids into the community also does little for the casinos (which is why, you'll notice, the casinos don't bother bringing in a lot of youth events). And nonsense about the parents being casino customers doesn't wash. Most families have little money or time available for sitting at a gaming table.

If Mesquite wasn't already a casino town, already a retirement community, the idea of bringing more youth sports would be a brilliant foundation for a directionless town.

But we are what we are. We were successful at bringing in retirees, golfers, and casino tourists when we worked at it (which we haven't done since the previous administration came into power at City Hall).

Building a soccer tent on the outskirts of town isn't anywhere close to being the best use of money we don't have. The delay to get bids and develop a plan is prudent, but an additional waste of time and money if it is simply used as the justification to go forward with an idea that just doesn't seem likely to succeed.

We would be better served to use that time to get together with local business owners and leaders, including the casino heads, and develop our own comprehensive long range plan. A Mesquite plan, instead of trying to ram ideas cooked up by out-of-towners down the throats of citizens and businesses. Again, we're collectively smarter here than our "public servants" give us credit for.

How To Kill A Small Town

2011-10-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

Mesquite is on the cusp of an historic accomplishment. We're probably going to make it into college textbooks somewhere.

Unfortunately, this notoriety will not be for something positive.

We are actually in danger of becoming a cautionary tale, a case study in how to go from being named one of the fastest-growing communities under 25,000 population, to practically gaining a spot on the well-known "Map of Nevada Ghost Towns." All within a decade.

Back in the early 2000's, Mesquite was absolutely booming, and was recognized as the fastest-growing small city in Nevada. Since Nevada was highlighted in several magazines during the same period as the fastest-growing state in the U.S., we were in rarified air.

Unfortunately, we became a victim of our own success.

Beginning around 2006, a word started creeping into the political vernacular: "controlled growth." Most people didn't understand that this was a euphemism for "no growth." Council members actually got elected on this platform.

A lot of laws were put into effect under this approach, including a stifling sign ordinance, increases in business license fees, more restrictive rules on construction, additional impact fees for development, impossible hoops to jump through to purchase city-owned land, and a general anti-business atmosphere at City Hall.

Almost two years ago, I happened to be sitting in a booth at Famous Dave's Barbeque in St. George. In the booth behind me was a gathering of three businessmen. It turned out that they were in the development industry. I couldn't help overhearing their conversation (I've learned that guys in the development business tend to be loud anyway.) They were talking about some project they had been considering to build in Mesquite, but that the rules and requirements were too restrictive. They talked about requirements for landscaping, parking lot demands, fees for this inspection and that review, and all the bureaucracy they were facing.

The rest of their conversation was about the other places they could go, most of them in Utah, where they wouldn't have to face this battery of obstacles.

I don't know what the project was, but I'm pretty sure it never came to Mesquite.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous article a couple of months ago, St. George is absolutely booming. It's hard for me to understand why anyone would choose Utah over Mesquite. We have basically the same climate, we're retirement-friendly, we have more and better golf courses, we have a large and welcoming Rec Center with two gyms and two pools, we have a nationally-known Sun City development, and our casinos make Mesquite a more vibrant and alluring option. We don't have the traffic congestion St. George endures. We have better and newer infrastructure. Also, Nevada does not have personal income tax and is very generous to corporations. To their credit, our Utah neighbor has way more shopping options and better health care facilities, but those are simply functions of being nearly 10 times bigger. Overall, Mesquite is a much better place to live.

Unfortunately, it's not a better place to do business.

Today, Mesquite is reeling from the triple whammy of "controlled growth" actions, horrendous decisions and direction by an ego-driven city administration, and of course the putrid national economy.

The combination has all but killed this once-thriving community. The few builders still in existence and still capable of actually getting the almost non-existent financing to build houses are looking at other places to ply their trade. One longtime Mesquite-based construction company has reportedly been considering relocation to North Dakota, which is experiencing explosive growth despite the moribund economy.

Worse, people have stopped looking at Mesquite as a retirement option. Retirees aren't interested in moving to a place whose emphasis has been on pie-in-the-sky sports parks for kids, mythical factories and facilities for alternative energy projects, a place where it's still not clear whether a coal-fired power plant might be built, and a community which still has very few shopping options. After all, what kind of community doesn't even have something as basic as a shoe store?

The people of this community have taken the first step toward fixing the second problem by dumping the previous mayor and one of her hand-picked anti-growth council members. Another problem child on the council decided not to seek re-election, which was a smart move.

Now the hard part starts, which is to solve the first problem. We have to figure out how to make Mesquite more growth prone and business friendly.

There are lots of struggling communities begging builders and businesses to come to their towns, places that have far fewer rules and way lower business fees.

We have to be competitive, aggressive, and welcoming.

Here's how to kill that effort, and finish killing off Mesquite:

Allow the water district to impose another impact fee.

Yet that is precisely what the Virgin Valley Water District seems determined to enact.

They are proud of themselves for lowering the price of the proposed Habitat Conservation Plan fees from the original level of $500 down to $200, but that's just the starting point. The fees can reach as high as $31,000 for larger projects and business construction.

Water board member Ted Miller is right. This is absolutely the worst time possible to add another layer of bureaucracy and another stack of fees to construction. Builders are already reluctant to build in Mesquite. Adding more costs will guarantee that they'll look elsewhere for their next project.

Like moving it to St. George.

Ditto for businesses and home buyers shopping for a place to relocate, because housing and commercial buildings will be more expensive here than in places where the government doesn't gouge the builders.

Board member Kenyon Leavitt is also correct in stating that this fee will be "double dipping." The City of Mesquite already charges a $500 impact fee for the HCP. That's more than enough to cover any future plans for building luxury condominiums for the snail darter or whatever mythical creature the federal government wants to pretend to coddle in the future.

Mesquite's City Hall and the Virgin Valley Water District need to understand that the golden goose is on life support. The days of booming development and tacking on fees nobody will notice are over.

If they want to watch this city's feeble heartbeat completely flatline, then go ahead and tack on this fee.

Then maybe we can start drawing visitors from colleges across the country who are interested in studying the town that died by its own hand.

Restaurant Price Increase A Good Thing

2011-09-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

My wife and I visited the Home Plate Diner last week. While walking in the front door, we noticed the woman behind the cash register taking old menus out of the plastic holders and putting new menus in.

"New menu items?" I asked.

"No, price increase," the woman answered, then showed us to our table.

After 10 minutes, I couldn't find any noticeable jumps in my favorite foods (which are, basically, everything on the menu).

So I'm going to say something very odd here:

Thank goodness for the price increase.

It's rare that I ever welcome any form of inflation, other than in my car tires. But this price increase is good news.

The Home Plate just celebrated its one-year anniversary. In that time, it has become a regular stop on my family's culinary cavalcade. The food is good, fast, inexpensive, and is served by friendly staff.

Originally, the restaurant's schtick was a throwback to the 1950's, with 45 rpm records and old posters of the Three Stooges on the walls. The service staff dressed in their interpretations of what that era entailed.

Since almost none of the servers were even alive back then, their guesses were hit or miss. To be honest, I wasn't born until the 1960's, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but I'm pretty sure that the waitresses with the tramp-stamps and full-sleeve tattoos probably aren't really capturing the essence of those "happy days." (Even well-travelled and well-tatted sailors avoided the lower back tattoo.)

In the last year, the 50's garb has slowly ebbed away, and the eatery has settled into its comfort zone of providing comfort food.

During that time, the staff has also dwindled. Worse, rumors of the restaurant's impending doom, closure, and eruption into an active desert volcano ran rampant.

Then, a few weeks ago, the restaurant actually shut down for a few days.

It was that shutdown which metaphorically smacked me in the face, and was hopefully a wake-up call for the community.

Like a lot of my neighbors, I've bemoaned the loss of businesses in Mesquite.

And, just like a lot of my neighbors, I'm partly to blame.

My Walmart addiction is well documented, as I've often ignored higher-priced local shops in favor of cheap Chinese goods. I'm ashamed of that fact, just as heroin junkies on the TV show "intervention" occasionally show remorse at their own weaknesses.

I haven't been eating out much lately, ever since rediscovering my journalistic roots (which means returning to the heyday of when my partners and I first started a local newspaper, and I wrote story after story for no pay). When my family and I DO go out, it's usually to one of the low-priced casino food joints.

So we weren't doing our fair share to keep the Home Plate going.

During the agonizing few days when the place was closed and rumors insisted that it would never again see the light of day, I felt bad for not being more supportive of a true local business (and, to be honest, because I was going to miss their fried chicken and chicken-fried steak).

When they reopened nearly a week later, my family and I vowed we were going to stop in at least once a week, whether we needed to or not.

One of the reasons is the owner, David Morris. For starters, he's a local guy, not a carpetbagger from Utah or Las Vegas hoping to carve his fortune out of the hides of Mesquite strangers.

Another cool thing about Morris is the fact that he works for a living. And I mean, really works. His full-time gig is as a manager at the Walgreens across the street from the Home Plate. Then, after working his regular shifts there, he puts in another million hours a week at his restaurant. Anyone who works that hard deserves to succeed.

As for the rumors about financial difficulties...that's an easy one to believe when a restaurant is charging $6 for a meal that would be $10 just about anywhere else outside of a casino town. I'm sure the folks at Playoffs, The Chalet, Vito's Ristorante, Denny's, Papa Murphy's, the Rio Virgin Grill, and a host of other local eateries could probably tell you, running a restaurant against casinos that boast prime rib for $5.99 is a losing proposition.

So if I have to open my wallet a little wider to ensure that a place like the Home Plate Diner will be able to continue putting out their tasty little chicken fingers and fries, I consider that a toll worth paying. With or without the boob tattoo that says "Born to serve hot wings."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Less than two weeks after this story was published online, the Home Plate Diner was closed and evicted from its location on Sandhill Boulevard.

Proposed Soccer Tent Still A Flop

2011-08-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

The City and NCS have proposed building a new "tent"
at the regional park, similar to this one at the CasaBlanca.

Last week, the City of Mesquite and their longtime bedfellow NCS rolled out their latest idea for the local gameshow "Who Can Waste A Million Dollars."

Originally, the plan was to build the shell of an amphitheater; concrete seating under the hot sun in an inaccessible gully; with a temporary stage; in a town where we already have two theater venues we can't fill, including a recently revamped one that has just 200 seats.

NCS and the City joined forces to come up with this bad idea, never bothering to ask local citizens what they might want built or bought with NCS's million dollar gift.

When the inevitable chorus of boos erupted, and continued with catcalls that wouldn't go away, the City and NCS called for a "do-over."

So a new meeting was set, local citizens showed up, and excitement was in the air as it appeared the people might actually get a chance to offer some ideas in an open forum.

Nope.

Last week's meeting was just another dog-and-pony show, just a different colored dog.

The City and NCS rolled out a prepared presentation on what they wanted next. Again, while questions and suggestions were permitted, it was obvious that this was just another "done deal" in search of citizen acquiescence.

The presentation featured a new bad idea to replace the old bad idea: a used tent.

The plan was for the City and NCS to go in on a "fabric building" that could be used for "indoor" events. The big idea for its use? An indoor soccer field. As if the other five unused soccer fields in the Mesquite Sports and Events Complex weren't enough.

To be fair, the venue could be used for other events...like the awards ceremonies at the annual Long Drivers championships. You know, the event that the MSEC was REALLY built for under the guise of a regional park. The soccer fields were a dodge used to scam the county into providing most of the funding, since most self-respecting county governments would refuse to knowingly use millions of taxpayer dollars to build a free venue for a multi-million dollar private sports corporation that caters to the rich.

One thing Mesquite truly needs, and has needed for years, is a civic center. We are supposed to be a tourist town; or at least that's what we were before politicians started dangling Mesquite as a destination for mythical renewable energy projects or a youth sports Mecca with the even more mythical but failed Desert Falls. Real tourist towns need a place to hold conventions.

The CasaBlanca built a temporary "Events Center" a few years ago that is (wait for it) a fabric building. Since then, the City has nagged them about taking it down because it's an eyesore, it exceeded the time limit of its original permit, and former CasaBlanca owner Randy Black never fulfilled his promise to build a permanent event center.

Now that it's the CITY and their bosom buddies at NCS looking to erect a big tent, well, that would be okay. Right?

So now the City is looking for public support in their endeavor to spend $2-3 million for the tent, which with the million dollar gift from NCS would still cost taxpayers a million or two.

Somehow the city officials missed the memo that said "Dear World, We are in a recession. Tighten your belts." You would think the blizzard of pink slips issued to longtime city employees over the last two years might have been a hint, but Mesquite's City Hall has never been accused of being particularly quick or bright. (Remember the post-dated check we took from the Desert Falls people?)

Oh, and the best part:

The tent we're buying is used. Two years old, to be exact. It has a guarantee that only promises the thing will remain standing for another eight years. And that's if the wind doesn't blow too hard, which it only does about 300 days a year in Mesquite.

Here's the good news: at least we're moving in the right direction.

We've gone from a completely unworkable outdoor venue with torturous concrete seating in an inaccessible place, to an enclosed soccer field in a remote park where we could at least put some uncomfortable folding chairs.

What we really need is a large, permanent, air conditioned convention facility as close to the middle of town as possible. With some nice chairs. And a city government smart enough to figure out how to market and promote it to draw in some conventions.

So the new tent is a baby step, although a stumbling one. Especially since Mesquite already has a tent, conveniently located next to a large hotel and casino. Also, we still have that whole "recession" thing to deal with before we start burning more taxpayer money (although that didn't stop City Hall from buying an $8 million police station and spending $1.7 million on some high-priced land for a library that we're likely to get just about the same time the first passenger jet touches down at our mythical new airport).

In the meantime, one question remains: If NCS has a million to give, why do they and the City continue to resist the idea of putting new ballfields in a sports park? One thing Mesquite DOES do well is lure baseball camps and softball tournaments, especially senior softball tournaments that bring plenty of fun and monied seniors to our hotels and casinos. In fact, on several occasions the promoters had to turn away teams because we simply didn't have enough fields.

Also, the location we're talking about is near Sun City, an active retirement community. I suspect they'd be more likely to use a softball field than an indoor soccer field. I've seen a lot of senior softball teams in my time here, but have yet to see a senior soccer team take the field.

Maybe the reason for avoiding a ballfield is the metaphorical comparisons that would surely follow. In an effort to hit a "home run," NCS and the City now have two strikes. Perhaps this would be a good time to call a timeout and hold a conference on the mound where the rest of the team, meaning the people of Mesquite who will be paying the bill, can have a chance to offer their ideas and suggestions.

CNN Story Tries To Tell Fairchild Tale

2011-08-21T18:02:00.001-07:00

(Photo courtesy Delaney Studio)

Finally, CNN's story on the Donna Fairchild murder/suicide has hit the internet.

CNN reporter Ann O'Neill spent some time in Mesquite trying to figure out what many of us have been trying to figure out for months: what happened on the night of Jan. 24.

O'Neill found out the same thing discovered by those of us who were close to the Fairchilds...that while there is plenty of speculation and finger pointing in every direction, we will probably never know what caused Fairchild to think things were so hopeless that killing herself was the only solution.

In O'Neill's excellent story, a few people want to blame me for causing city councilwoman to feel she had no other option.

Did I have a hand in her death?

Of course not.

Donna knew, and I believe her friends did as well, that I was trying to get her side of the story out to the people. There are two newspapers in our town, and the one I helped found was consistently the one to uncover corruption and political wrongdoing in Mesquite.

O'Neill was absolutely right, this community has had a mean streak for years, long before our newspaper started in 2006. The difference is, the evil was covered up and glossed over until my partners and I decided that the wrongdoing had to be exposed and stopped.

In just the last 18 months, since our expose's on the local water board, there have been three indictments of high ranking officials, including one who was accused of taking more than a million dollars in bribes. Had we not dug into the shenanigans, there's a good chance that the corruption would still be going on today.

The city government was also known for playing hide and seek with information, including a refusal to release video on an inmate in the city jail who allegedly hung himself in 2009, and a reluctance to share details and internal reports on a police officer who was fired for allegations of sexual misconduct in 2008.

When I first got wind that there was a move within the city to throw Fairchild off the council over a $94 travel voucher, I immediately contacted her to get her side of the story. Donna and I spoke regularly. She was one of only two people on the council I trusted, and I believe she trusted me.

When she explained that she turned in the travel voucher by accident, I believed her. One thing the CNN story doesn't mention is that Donna was never paid for that voucher. No check was cashed, no money changed hands, the taxpayers were never out their $94. It doesn't excuse her error, but it does help reaffirm (in my mind, at least) that she wasn't a crook. A lot of people would disagree with me.

I spoke to her just days before she killed herself. In that conversation, she was very upbeat, fierce in her intent to fight the attempt to remove her from the council, and angry that what led to all the uproar was a negative statement she made about the Nevada Development Authority. She was outraged that she was being targeted for speaking out about the NDA. In the official council agenda, the $94 wasn't the only issue. She was also accused of violating the city's Code of Conduct by making the derogatory statements about a board she was on while representing the city. She felt the attack on her was a violation of her First Amendment rights, an attempt to shut her up.

I agreed. In fact, the Editorial I had planned for the coming Thursday edition was going to be about exactly that.

In our conversation, she didn't sound sad, defeated, or even particularly worried.

I ran the story about the accusations and her response because that's what good newspapers do. Even though I liked and respected her, I couldn't cover it up and pretend that she wasn't facing a possible expulsion vote on the following Tuesday.

As for claims by others that the anonymous comments which readers posted at the bottom of that story might have "driven her over the edge," I find the idea highly unlikely.

For starters, if you look at those comments (most of which are still online), you would see that most of the comments supported her.

As for the ones that attacked her...I always believed she was stronger than that. She had withstood worse over the years, particularly after an unfortunate incident a few years before in which she told a citizen complaining at a city council meeting that, "if you don't like it, you should leave Mesquite" during a heated exchange. (As was her nature, she later apologized to the citizen, and always felt bad about her outburst).

So, why DID she kill her husband and take her own life?

Some believe she was bullied into it. Bullying often leads to suicide. To me, it's the only explanation that almost makes sense.

Who did the bullying? There are plenty of likely suspects, both inside and outside City Hall. The CNN story hints at a few of them. But without Donna here to specifically point her finger, we'll never know for sure.

The only thing I DO know for certain is that I wasn't one of them. In numerous talks with Fairchild friends after her death, they have repeatedly expressed that she didn't blame me for running the story. In fact, at least one from her circle told me that Donna felt I was "on her side."

It's tough for any journalist to take a "side" in a story. But I will say this: I believed her explanation, and I believe to this day that the vote planned for the Jan. 24 City Council meeting was a political move against a potentially strong mayoral candidate and an independent thinker on the council.

Another item that wasn't included in the CNN story: In April, then-mayor Susan Holecheck received only 20% of the votes cast for the office of mayor in the primary, which meant she never made it onto the General Election ballot in June.

One last thing I wanted to address: I didn't lose my job as a result of the Fairchild death or story.

In fact, in a grand stroke of irony, it was one of the very few times while working for the large company that purchased our newspaper in 2009 that I felt my supervisor actually supported me and had my back. When one of the individuals named in the CNN story called my boss (something he did with great regularity) and told him that "Fairchild's blood is on Workman's hands," my boss told me that he became enraged and basically told the gentleman to go pound sand.

During the two years I worked for that company, I was constantly in battles with my supervisors because they weren't happy with the controversial stories and hard news I continued to pursue instead of lighter fare and softer features. I wasn't fired, my two year contract was up. They wanted to go in a "different direction," and chose not to renew the contract.

Believe me, it was a blessing.

As O'Neill noted, the newspaper is now a much softer and gentler publication.

Which brings us to the final question: Does Mesquite have a "mean streak?" Is it a wicked place filled with terrible people?

Quite the contrary.

It is a town filled with people who are mostly "from somewhere else." Like ALL small towns, it has its share of corruption, collusion, "Good Ole Boy" syndromes, and gossip. Plenty of gossip. It is a town in flux, still trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Part of that flux is the evolution from a small town controlled by a very small group of powerful people to a more inclusive place where everyone can have a say. The new mayor and new city council have embraced that new approach. They have eliminated the Code of Conduct, opened up previously secret "technical review" meetings to the public, started moving away from the "anti-business" approach which has hurt this town, and have welcomed input in ways we haven't seen in a long time. I believe Mesquite is on the right track.

But that only happened because somebody dared to exclaim that the "emperor wasn't wearing any clothes"; someone spoke up and exposed the corruption; someone refused to cover up our ugly warts.

So if Mesquite really is mean, and someone must be blamed, then that someone is me. I have always believed that you can't solve a problem until you admit there IS a problem. Mesquite has had a lot of problems, and like every town large or small, will continue to have problems. The only question is whether those problems will be covered up and hidden so our town won't look bad; or the alternative, which is that the problems will be acknowledged, examined, and corrected. I always opted for the latter. If that makes me "mean," I can live with that.

Most people agree, I'm the one who wouldn't shut up about the problems. I'm the one who kept talking about them, and picking at them. And I didn't always do it in a nice way. I guess in some instances, I probably WAS mean.

But not in the case of Donna Fairchild.

The good news is that the former mayor is gone; the majority of city council members are gone; the police chief is gone; the city manager is gone; most of the officials at the water board are gone;

And I'm gone.

Mesquite has a chance to start over, to resurrect its image as the "Diamond in the Desert" where visitors, daytrip gamblers, senior softballers, and vacationers love to "come for a day, stay for a lifetime."

I invite you to come and find out for yourself. I'll warn you, the town has some flaws and warts. But it is also filled with welcoming, wonderful people who are working to make Mesquite better and better.

It's once again becoming a place I believe Bill and Donna Fairchild would have liked.

Missing Minutes

2011-08-17T08:12:00.001-07:00

While there have been dramatic changes in Mesquite's city government since the election of Mark Wier as mayor and Kraig Hafen, Al Litman, and George Rapson as councilmen, some things never seem to change.

It's pretty likely that somewhere in the venerable and secretive City Hall, someone explained for the someteenth time that "the people of Mesquite aren't very bright, they have short attention spans like Ritalin-deprived sixth graders, and they'll just forget."

This time, the conversation was surely about the city's website, and the removal of City Council meeting minutes.

Earlier in the year, the city had fallen way behind in updating the minutes online, sometimes with gaps of two to three months.

Then in April, right as the primary elections were coming down to the wire and people might be interested in researching how certain candidates voted or conducted meetings, the minutes vanished from the list of previous council meetings.

The City claimed it was a computer glitch (what else). You know what the problem was? According to a city official, in some instances the system was showing the "working minutes" instead of the sanitized, "approved" minutes. Horrors!

Using that excuse, instead of taking down the handful of objectionable minutes, the city zapped them all.

Of course, the city promised the minutes would be back up a week after the primary elections, in time for the general election.

I'm not sure why, after years of lies and deceptions, I would be surprised that the city government once again misled the public.

Here it is August, four full months later, and the meeting minutes are still missing from the meeting page of the city's Sire system. The city claims you can do a search and find the meeting minutes, but that means you have to know the topic of a particular meeting instead of just being able to click chronologically. Also, the city website admits that, even in the searchable database, you won't find any minutes for meetings after April 11.

Apparently, it's hard to type up meeting minutes. Despite the fact that previous City Clerks managed to stay on top of minutes for complicated council meetings that ran as long as three to four hours featuring mystifying building plans and permit approvals, our current City Clerk is just too overwhelmed by the 55-minute sessions that have been the hallmark of council meetings over the last six months.

In fact the job is so massive that, despite numerous layoffs of longtime dedicated city employees, the council voted to approve money to hire a transcription service to type up the minutes.

Only a government could get away with such incompetence. If a business made a promise to their customers, then didn't follow through, the customers would walk away and the business would fail. (Unless, of course, that business is Exxon or Microsoft).

This seems like a minor thing until you understand that the minutes are the most important documents maintained by any government. It's the official record of their actions, and frequently includes information necessary for upcoming decisions, which is a little bit more important than an announcement about the World Series of Beer Pong to be held at a local casino (which happened to be on the front page of the city's website a couple of weeks ago).

With the public unable to see those online minutes, it's difficult for citizens to get up to speed on city issues, or figure out how the city got into such a mess. Without those voting records, it's also impossible to hold their elected officials accountable because it's tough to figure out who voted for what.

Sure, there are more important tasks demanded of the city's IT department, like blocking staff's access to local news websites and counting how many times someone views a Dilbert cartoon online. But somewhere in the city's censorship crusade, you'd think they could find time to actually fix a problem that's been lingering for more than 120 days.

We all know this isn't the IT department's fault, or the fault of the records clerk, it's a move (or lack of a move) by City Hall's leadership. If this was really important, like buying a new SUV to replace the "elephant" previously assigned as a mayor's vehicle, it would have been done already.

But it's just a series of official documents intended to record the history of the city government, nothing worth losing sleep over, right?. After all, if the city continues to hide the minutes in a searchable database, eventually the people will lose interest, forget about it, and go back to sleep, which is precisely what the city government wants - peacefully sleeping sheep.

Mesquite Falling Behind

2011-08-10T11:22:00.001-07:00

I made a trip to St. George this week, something I am loathe to do.

While visiting our nearest neighbor, I was struck by something that bothered me.

At the doctor's office my wife was visiting, I noticed that another office building was being built in the complex off Riverside Road. As we traveled around the Utah city, I noticed other construction projects in full swing.

Also, on the way to that office, we went through a construction gauntlet on the interstate. They were building another overpass between exits 4 and 6, and widening I-15.

The rest of the country is facing round two of the recession, but St. George is booming and thriving.

Obviously, as a Mesquitian, I am jealous.

I began to ponder what makes St. George continue to grow while my beloved hometown is dying before my eyes.

It's tough to figure out.

Both towns have identical climates, meaning extremely hot in the spring, blisteringly hot in the summer, brutally hot in the fall, and sometimes downright pleasant during the brief winter.

St. George and Mesquite have similar LDS roots and continued strong church influences.

Each is located right on the interstate. Both have nice golf courses.

The differences?

Well, to be honest, Mesquite is in Nevada, which means no state income taxes, very friendly state tax structures for businesses, and a right-to-work state which means unions have trouble getting a toe hold (or another way of putting it, workers can be and are abused, grotesquely underpaid, kicked around, and spit on, and nobody steps up for them).

Mesquite is closer to Nevada's largest metropolitan center of Las Vegas than St. George is to Salt Lake, Utah's big city.

Mesquite is newer and fresher, with excellent infrastructure. St. George is older, with more rundown areas and more low-income housing, and roads that need some help in places.

Mesquite is open 24 hours a day, with casinos, liberal liquor laws, and used to be focused on tourism. St. George has some tourism, most of it revolving around their marathon and senior games, and welcomes visitors so long as they are in bed by 9 p.m. They have one bar, one liquor store, and the beer they serve has an alcohol content of 3.2%. I've had chocolate milk that had more kick to it.

But here are a few things in St. George's favor.

First, they have a shiny new airport. The one they used to have was barely bigger than Mesquite's current muni plane place, but Utahns had enough vision 10 years ago to start the ball rolling on a bigger place. Since then, they've added two interstate exits, several nearby commercial and residential projects, and opened up a whole new section of town.

I suspect Mesquite will start getting serious about an airport just about the time intercontinental space travel becomes the norm.

However, one of the biggest immediate differences is attitude toward business.

If you're a carpetbagger from somewhere else with big dreams, no money, and an attractive sales pitch, Mesquite is your destination. For example, we rolled out the red carpet, sold land at fire sale prices, accepted post-dated checks, and heralded an unlikely amateur sports park that even little old Hurricane, Utah was too smart to bite into.

But if you're a small business owner, trying to open a store, introduce a new service, or build a little water park with batting cages and a paintball facility in Mesquite, forget it. You'll see more hurdles than an Olympic decathlon sprinter.

A few months ago, I wrote a story that exemplified the problem. A woman wanted to keep her used furniture store going, but the city insisted she complete an intrusive 13-page business license application that was the equivalent of a discount proctology exam. Oh, and about $600 a year in license fees plus a one-time fee of $145.

To open the same store in St. George, it required a one-page application, and a $50 annual fee.

The Mesquite application process has been improved a little bit, but what hasn't gotten much better yet is the inherent anti-business attitude expressed by City Hall for years with high license fees and cumbersome application and approval processes.

Hopefully the new city council will fix some of this, particularly since the current lineup includes a mayor whose full time job is doing marketing and expanding services for the local phone company; a former casino executive; the head broker at an extremely successful real estate company; and a Mesquite native who owns several commercial properties and businesses.

Also, with the departure of Tim Hacker and Catherine Lorbeer, businesses should start feeling a little more warm and fuzzy when visiting City Hall.

Of course, we still need the Chamber of Commerce to step up and become as aggressive in recruiting and helping new businesses as they are in throwing drinking parties and going bowling. Thankfully, the organization is worlds ahead of where it was two years ago, but it still needs a lot of work and some new vision in which "gaming" isn't a dirty word. Someone also needs to give them a map that shows the world isn't flat beyond exits 120 and 122, and that it's okay to market and promote Mesquite beyond our borders.

Business is essential for a growing city, even if the community's number one cash crop is retirees.

One more thing: when a business comes to town, we the people need to support it. A skating rink is closing because nobody showed up, and the city wouldn't help rework a mostly-empty bus route out to the facility. A certain resurrected restaurant on Mesquite Boulevard frequently serves less than a half-dozen people for lunch. A longtime furniture store recently closed down because people would rather go to Las Vegas and St. George to save $50 on a living room set. If we continue to take our money out of town, it won't be long before we won't have a town.

We don't want to be St. George, any more than we want to be Las Vegas. But when other areas are thriving and recovering while Mesquite continues to die a slow death, it's time to wake up, look around, figure out what's wrong, and start the hard work of fixing it.

Water District Going Backwards

2011-08-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

It all started when the golf courses wanted a long term sweetheart deal from the Virgin Valley Water District, trying to lock in water leases at $250 a share for irrigation water when the going rate paid by the Southern Nevada Water Authority for the same leases was more than $2,000 per share.

Wolf Creek Golf Course was already getting that tasty deal, one they had negotiated before the water district started auctioning their water shares to the highest bidder, which is the most fair way to distribute those shares of a limited resource. As an aside, the attorney who put together the contract for that discount deal as the water district's legal counsel was the same attorney who also represented Wolf Creek in water matters, but he claimed there was no conflict. Fortunately, he's no longer the water district's lawyer.

Under the auction process, minimum bids started at $300 a share, and went up from there. Most of the time, the shares went for the $300 price, but the potential was there for higher numbers. More importantly, if someone really needed the water, they had the chance to get it by bidding a higher price. Again, it doesn't get much fairer than that.

In 2010, not long after every other water user in the valley got popped with a 36% rate increase, the golf courses had the gall to not only want to bypass any rate increase for irrigation water, but actually wanted a lease decrease from the $300 threshold back to the lowball rate of $250 a share. Cherry on top? They wanted the deeply discounted rate locked in for 10 years.

During the protracted negotiations, the water district decided to completely wipe out a water leasing program they had been using for years and years, just so they could come up with a cheaper metered program for irrigation water that would benefit the golf courses. The greens guys jumped on it, the water district signed off, and it looked like a happily ever after for everyone except the other 18,000 water users in the valley.

As you would expect, the farmers saw that deal and wanted to know how they could get in on the savings, which included an eight-year freeze on rates. The water district shrugged their collective shoulders, said "why not," and declared "first come, first served."

That approach might work if you're selling ice cream, but it's a horrendous idea for a rare commodity that's getting more rare and in more demand every day. It would be like discontinuing the practice of auctioning gold futures, and declaring all gold from now on will be sold "first come, first served" at $1,000 an ounce. A pretty unworkable idea.

A couple of months ago, the water district finally figured out that the metering idea wouldn't work, and went back to just leasing water shares for the farmers and other non-golf course users. The only problem is that instead of reinstating the auction process, they announced it would be "first come, first served." It was the equivalent of NASCAR's pronouncement to "have at it, boys."

Here it is, just two months later, and the catastrophe has occurred. According to a story in the Mesquite Citizen Journal, Bunker Farms claimed they made a "verbal request" for the water back in May. Robert Draskovich, a local resident, has been trying to lease water since April, waiting for the VVWD to make up its mind on how to distribute the water shares. It took a while for the water district to figure out how to make an application form, so he wasn't able to fill one out until June. Which he did. Five days before Bunker Farms filled out and submitted theirs.

Sounds easy so far. Draskovich got his paperwork in first, so it should go to him, right?

Not in the Good Old Boys, whisper and a handshake, arrest-and-indictment-laced world of the Virgin Valley Water District.

On Tuesday, the water district voted to lease the water to the Bunkerville boys on the basis of their "verbal request," leaving Draskovich "S.O.L." again.

All of this could have been avoided had the water district gone back to the auction-based system that had been working well for years, but that would make too much sense. This is, after all, a quasi-governmental agency, which means their first order of business is to check their common sense at the door.

So my advice today to anyone who thinks they may need to lease water shares in the next, oh, 10 or 20 years, is to call up the water board members this afternoon, tell them you want to lease some water shares someday, and to remember that you asked first. The good news is that, while rare water shares in 2021 will probably be going for about $10,000 each in the rest of southern Nevada, VVWD will probably still be leasing them (the water shares owned by us, the public) for around $300 a share so long as you have the right pedigree.

And if you happen to have a putting green in your back yard, be sure to mention that fact as well. As a "golf course owner," you're almost guaranteed to get the water when you're ready, and at a nice discounted rate.

Bye Bye, Code of Conduct

2011-07-27T09:05:00.001-07:00

At Tuesday's Mesquite City Council meeting, the council voted 4-1 to do away with the Code of Conduct, the instrument that was previously used to muzzle council members and to destroy councilwoman Donna Fairchild.

The document was the embodiment of the "put on a happy face" schtick that was the trademark of the failed previous administration. Among its more grievous standards was the statement that council members were not permitted to say anything negative about boards or committees to which the council members were assigned. Nobody on the council seemed to recognize the irony of a government agency in the United States so blatantly impinging on the First Amendment freedom of speech rights of the council members. As Fairchild said before she died, she didn't surrender her freedom of speech when she took the council oath of office.

Another despicable codicil of the failed and now discarded Code was that council members were forbidden to talk to city employees other than the City Manager.

Despite the fact that Mesquite's City Attorney acknowledges that the Code of Conduct was copied from a document used by Sunnyvale, CA (which is an irony in itself, "Sunnyvale," because the previous administration tried to pretend that everything was sunny and fine in Mesquite), it fit perfectly the aims of a now deposed power hungry City Manager who wanted everything to go through him first, pretending that it would make things more efficient.

Since when is playing the "telephone game" (that game we played as kids, where one person says something to the person next to them, that person passes it on to the next, and so on until it reaches the end of the line as a completely different statement than what was originally said) a model of efficiency? No, it was all about control and power. And it was a horrible idea which contributed to the enormous chasm between the city government and the people they were supposed to be serving. In a well-functioning democracy, a citizen should be able to call a council member, who can then go right to a city employee to get an answer or fix a problem. Not only should it be a council member's right to go directly to a staff member, it should be their responsibility. Yes, it might make the job a little harder for that city employee to have five or six extra bosses in the form of a mayor and council. Tough. The city government is in place to serve and cater to the people, not the other way around.

If you read the Code of Conduct, it makes elected officials look like children who need constant supervision by unelected bureaucrats. For example, one rule is that council members were not allowed to send correspondence to citizens without running it by city staff. Another is that council members weren't allowed to attend city staff meetings unless specifically invited.

Of course, my personal favorite was the section on "Council Conduct With The Media," which opened with this quote: "Keep them well fed and never let them know that all you’ve got is a

chair and a whip." -- Lion Tamer School.

About the only quote that could have provided a more honest and accurate depiction of the previous secrecy-shrouded administration would be if they had simply written "Treat 'em like mushrooms - keep 'em in the dark and feed them plenty of B.S."

As expected, the only councilman to oppose the elimination of the Code of Conduct was Karl Gustaveson, Susan Holecheck's boy and the last vestige of the calamitous Holecheck regime. And it was quintessential Gustaveson. The people spoke loudly during the last campaign in opposition of the Code of Conduct. They didn't like it, didn't want it. But in typical Gustaveson style, he still seems to believe that he knows what's best for us, knows more than the people, and appears to have little interest in what the people want. Even after a lopsided political butt-whipping, some elected officials just aren't smart enough to get the message or learn the lesson.

The good news is that the Code of Conduct is gone, which will open the door for council members to be even more honest and transparent in expressing their opinions to the public, intervening personally on behalf of citizens, and telling the ugly truth instead of putting on a Sunny(vale) face.

To see a copy or bid farewell to the now-defunct Code of Conduct, go to http://records.mesquitenv.gov/sirepub/cache/0/cjpfsa2ay1mf2tavf3jbf3qw/312242072720110807493.PDF.

Suicide Blind Spot

2011-07-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Mesquite Police Department is one of the finest in the state, and possibly one of the better departments in the entire country. While too many people inside and outside of Mesquite want to paint our officers as a collection of Barney Fifes, and insist they're patrolling a 21st century Mayberry, the truth is quite different.

Just last week, a routine traffic stop by a Mesquite officer resulted in arrests for possession of illegal credit card equipment and credit cards. The only reason these criminals were taken off the street is because a Mesquite police officer was diligent, smart, and pursued his instincts. After asking if he could look through the car, he conducted a thorough search of the vehicle from California, finding the equipment that was obviously being used for an illegal enterprise.

The department has made numerous arrests over the last 12 months that came about from rapid responses and sharp, alert cops.

Also, the department has become more transparent during the last three years, even with a City Hall that has repeatedly tried to squash information. Under interim police chief Troy Tanner, the flow of information from the department has continued to improve, despite recently losing one of the best Public Information Officers in the state.

Unfortunately, despite all that openness, the department and the city government continue to have a blind spot.

When someone takes their own life in the city of Mesquite, this transparent, open machine goes into secrecy overdrive.

The recent suicide by a Virgin Valley High School student is a tragedy, and is no doubt a horrendous burden on the family and friends she left behind. No amount of words can soothe the gaping hole in their souls caused by the girl's death. In a civilized society, their pain warrants sympathy and discretion.

However, in that same civilized society, that discretion should not include the suppression of the facts surrounding what is technically and legally deemed a form of homicide.

The demand for information by the media and the public is not a matter of morbid curiosity, or just an insistence on the people's right to know.

It's an issue of safety and community involvement to fix things that might be broken. People cannot correct something when they don't know there's a problem.

As most mental health experts will agree, any suicide attempt whether successful or not is a cry for help. In this instance, because of the Mesquite Police Department's decision not to release information on the death, that cry will go unheeded and in vain.

No one can bring this teenager back. But if the facts surrounding her death are covered up as they appear to have been in this case, we lose an opportunity to learn from it and possibly prevent it from happening to another young person.

The rumors around town have been rampant that the girl was the victim of bullying. This may or may not be true. If it isn't true, the police department should say so, lay out the facts, and put these rumors to rest.

If it is true, then someone needs to be held accountable. More importantly, the people of this community need to know so measures can be taken to keep it from occurring again.

In the murder-suicide involving city councilwoman Donna Fairchild, there were indications that a form of political bullying may have taken place. That doesn't excuse the murder part of the equation, but might help explain how things reached such a tragic place. If properly investigated and reported by the police, it would again help stanch the flow of rumor and innuendo that flourishes in an informational vacuum. The public could also use the information to try and find ways of putting legal, moral, and procedural safeguards in place that might keep this from repeating itself.

In the Fairchild case, police became more forthcoming with information once City Hall's secret-keepers stepped out of the way and allowed the police department to provide their own briefings, but there were still plenty of secrets held by police, including details of the autopsy and conversations between the councilwoman and people at City Hall.

Then you have the 2009 jailhouse suicide of Tim Thompson. The department was willing to permit a video of the suicide to be viewed by the media, but the idea was squashed by City Hall. The result is that today, more than two years later, rumors persist that the man's death wasn't a suicide, but something more sinister.

In the case of the most recent suicide, more information should have been released. Yes, the family's wishes for privacy need to be respected, but the safety of the rest of our kids must take priority. If bullying is taking place in our schools, that is a societal problem that must be addressed by the community. It's not the school's burden alone. Police by themselves can't stop it.

Mesquite is a caring small town, and the residents of this town would stand united in spreading the message and teaching our young people that bullying cannot and will not be tolerated.

But the community can't spread that message if it doesn't know whether bullying is taking place, or if it was a factor in this girl's heartbreaking death.

As the cliche' goes, information is power. Withholding information makes the people powerless. And once again, the vacuum which remains will almost always be filled with humanity's worst nature.

Interim Chief Tanner and the dedicated officers of the Mesquite Police Department have shown they're better than this.

They have to get rid of that blind spot, and do a better job of informing the public on the hard stuff to go along with the press releases about their victories.

The lives of our children and friends just may depend on it.

Mayor, Council Provide 'Wow' Moments

2011-07-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

When was the last time Mesquite citizens had a "wow" moment at a city council meeting?

Tuesday's gathering at City Hall was the first for the new mayor and council, and this fresh group did not disappoint.

Right out of the gate, the council showed that they aren't going to play games with the agenda.

The most important issue of the evening was to address the thorny question of moving the municipal election dates.

Instead of burying this important topic at the end of the agenda, which was frequently the tactic used by the previous administration, the new council faced it head-on as the first action item on the meeting lineup.

Then, when the council actually took on the topic, they did something extraordinary.

Instead of voting their own preference, they voted in accordance with the will of the people.

During their campaigns, Mayor Mark Wier and new council members Kraig Hafen, George Rapson, and Al Litman were very clear in expressing their opposition to moving the election dates from June of odd years to November of even years.

However, in the June election, the voters approved the move by an 11-point margin in a non-binding advisory question.

On Tuesday, the council voted 5-0 to instruct the city attorney to craft a change to city ordinance which would move the election dates.

In their first heady action as newly-elected officials, fresh from the ego-stoking election and at a time when a lot of politicians might be filled with their own self importance, this group stated and decided that the people had spoken, and that they needed to heed that direction.

No arguments, no posturing, no hints of the old "we know what's best for you" attitude that defined the previous council.

Wow!

Another "wow" moment occurred this week in a MesquiteCitizen.com article where Mayor Wier declared that future Technical Reviews will not only be open to the public, they will be noticed and agendized. By law, this means that the public will be allowed to speak and ask questions during the meeting. Also, contrary to the position frequently (and erroneously) espoused by the previous administration, the law states that council members not only can but should discuss the issues brought up by the public.

According to paragraph 3 of Nevada Revised Statute 241 2(c), the agenda must include "a period devoted to comments by the general public, if any, and discussion of those comments."

They still can't vote on an unagendized item brought up under public comments, or promise any particular action, but they CAN talk about it.

Also, by agendizing and posting a notice of the meeting, it frees the council to discuss or "deliberate" on the questions listed in the agenda.

In fact, the law defines a meeting as a "gathering of members of a public body at which a quorum is present to deliberate toward a decision or to take action on any matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power."

Wier's decision to notice, agendize, and make the Technical Reviews open to the public is worthy of a collective "wow."

Obviously we're all still in the honeymoon phase with this council. But in only two weeks, they've shown a humility and willingness to champion the public's expressed intent, and an intent to follow through on their campaign promises of openness and transparency.

In the face of oppressive and stifling summer heat, this mayor and council have brought an exciting breath of fresh air to this desert community.

Technical Reviews Finally Open...Almost

2011-07-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

$500? $500?!? That's all, just 500 measly little dollars?

According to a story in last week's MesquiteCitizen.com, City Attorney Cheryl "Point of Order" Hunt cautioned the new city council during their first-ever Technical Review on Tuesday that deliberations during those meetings might lead to a fine for violating Nevada's Open Meeting Law.

The fine? A whopping $500.

That's just a few bucks more than an individual council member used to get for a car allowance in a month. It's about what the city pays an outside attorney for an hour of their time, or what they give to the myriad of consultants for two or three hours of work.

If that's all it takes for the people of Mesquite to hear the truth and for the city's business to be discussed openly during a meeting, it's a bargain and should be paid often.

I'm not a man of means, but I would certainly be willing to lead a fund-raising campaign to gather donations from the public in order to pay any potential fines levied against a council member for actually speaking up and speaking out during a Technical Review, or any other meeting.

For years, the City of Mesquite has mastered the art of using Nevada's Open Meeting Laws as a shield to hide their machinations. If they spent a fraction of that energy in looking for ways to be more open, the people would be happier and the city government wouldn't be held in it's current position of esteem, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of a crooked used car salesman with a law degree.

Last Tuesday, the newly elected mayor and council gathered for a Technical Review meeting, the first of this new administration, and the first ever to be open to the public.

Previously, the city's dodge was to hold several of the meetings with only one or two council members, claiming that it was a requirement of the OML.

At Tuesday's meeting, the mayor and all five council members were in attendance.

Kudos to new mayor Mark Wier and the new council for opening this meeting to the public, a great first step.

The new mayor has done something noble, courageous, and worthy of our applause. By making the Technical Reviews public, he has opened the process and taken the first step toward bridging a divide which has been alienating the council from its constituents for years. Extremely well done, Mr. Wier!

Boos go to City Attorney POO and whoever made the rule that, while the public could attend, they were not permitted to speak or ask questions.

She also warned the council against talking, discussing, debating, or anything that might be construed as a deliberation, waving that $500 fine around like an NFL official's penalty flag.

Of course, nobody seemed to have a problem with silencing the public, even though there was only one actual member of the public in attendance other than city staff and the press.

According to that pesky Nevada Revised Statute 241, it seems to be a $500-worthy direct violation of the OML.

Specifically, NRS 241.020 2(c) states that the agenda must include "a period devoted to comments by the general public, if any, and discussion of those comments."

So, not only is the public allowed to comment, the council members are allowed to answer back.

However, the excuse is that it wasn't an official, agendized meeting, so the rule doesn't apply.

Once again, it looks like City Hall is continuing to audition for the new hit TV show "So You Think You Can Dance Around The Law."

Also, what's the sense in having a party if nobody gets an invitation?

Wier and the council are half a breath away from the real fix, which is to make the Technical Review an officially noticed, agendized meeting. By doing so, it meets NRS 241 head on, allows deliberation and discussion by the council, and permits the public to attend and speak up.

Once that happens, it will be up to the people of this community to actually show up and participate. Hopefully the meetings won't devolve into protracted sessions of tedium with endless questions and political posturing.

Only then will the city truly be on the road to real transparency.

Thanks To Eureka For Fireworks

2011-07-05T09:04:00.001-07:00

For the second consecutive year, the Fourth of July celebration was saved by the Eureka resort and the family of Greg Lee.

The fireworks started a little late on Monday, getting underway around 9:20 p.m. after being advertised with a 9 p.m. start date, but that’s a minor inconvenience when you consider we could have been left without fireworks at all.

While I personally enjoyed the show from my mom’s back yard instead of battling the traffic and crowds near Mesa Boulevard, I was no less grateful for what the Lee family did. In fact, that vantage point made me even more appreciative of the gesture.

Paying for the fireworks and bringing an orchestra in for a performance probably didn’t help, like a band or show which draws people into the casino with the expectation at some point they’ll drop a few dollars in a machine or on a table. I suspect there were a lot of other fans like me who watched from home, which didn’t contribute a dime to the Eureka’s Monday night take.

Greg Lee is one of the smartest guys I’ve met during my time out west, so I’m certain he’s aware of this, which makes the gesture that much more magnanimous.

Following the fireworks, I ended up on the streets of Mesquite, and noticed that those streets were busy. This town was alive.

And that’s the point. It’s the thing that Mesquite city officials just don’t get.

Somehow, City Hall can find hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants, hundreds of thousands more for environmental studies on the mating patterns of the desert tortoise, and even 30 or 40 grand for a new SUV which I noticed in the City Hall parking lot last week.

But they just can’t spare $7,000 for a fireworks show that brings hundreds if not thousands of people to Mesquite, something which would benefit the local businesses that are shouldering more than their share of the city’s cash needs with sales taxes and business license fees that have skyrocketed higher than that green and red circular firework that lit up the Mesquite sky on Monday night.

A Fourth of July celebration is exactly the kind of hometown event this community should embrace in a big way, an opportunity to show off our patriotism, put our shiny streets on display, and let the people from surrounding towns know that Mesquite is a happening place where people are friendly and welcoming.

Instead, the city abandons this responsibility and once again dumps it on the casinos to carry the load.

Without those casinos blasting the Mesquite name up and down the interstate and across TV screens, our town would be about as well known as Tonopah or Panaca.

It’s about more than money and budgets and this devious political tactic of cutting the most visible and most obvious expenditures to make sure the city has plenty of money to give to out of town consultants and lobbyists.

It’s about community pride.

The Lee family certainly has it.

A lot of the citizens do, too.

Apparently, the only place this civic pride is lacking is at City Hall.

We can only hope the new council will re-evaluate this short-sighted notion and embrace the idea that Mesquite must return to being a destination for visitors in search of fun.

The tourists will not return unless we give them a good reason, and it can’t all fall on the casinos alone.

Until then, the best we can do is thank the Lee family and the Eureka for caring more about our community than our own city government does, and express our gratitude for their kindness.

Mayor's Supporters Lack Class On Way Out

2011-06-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night marked another moment of change for Mesquite.
As you would expect, the city council meeting was a night marked by accolades and appreciation for the outgoing mayor and council. It was the right way to go. Instead of recounting all of the council's missteps, mistakes, blunders, offenses, and violations of citizen rights, the crowd was gracious and offered platitudes and reminders of the good things done during the last four years. Not a single person came to the dais and offered a cheer for the departure of what has been a very bad administration, or rubbed it in about a mayor who received just 20% of the vote in the April primary.
It was a tasteful farewell.
What wasn't expected is how the mayor's supporters showed no class on their way out.
In the back of the Council Chambers, a group of the mayor's supporters could be seen on TV wearing black t-shirts that said "Y.O.Y.O." The same black t-shirt could be seen draped across the back of the mayor's chair.
Since I was "enjoying" the meeting from the comfort of my living room, I had no idea what the group was about, so I asked a couple of friends in attendance.
It turns out that Y.O.Y.O. stands for "You're On Your Own." On the back, the t-shirts said "No Help Is On The Way."
I could be wrong, but it feels like a disrespectful slam, a nasty-gram to the people of Mesquite.
I certainly applaud the loyalty of a small band of supporters, but there were more dignified ways of doing it.
The negative vibe was particularly ironic on a night when the mayor continued banging the "let's be positive" gong during her parting remarks, part of the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" refrain she has relentlessly beaten to death during her term. While the "silver lining" approach may sound noble, in reality it was merely an attempt to hypnotize city staff and the populace into believing everything was rosy, when the exact opposite has been true. It's like the street magician saying "watch this hand, watch this hand" while using the other hand to empty the crowd's pockets.
Anytime an elected official starts telling you that everyone needs to be positive, beware. It means you're about to get a screwing so royal that you'll walk funny for weeks. They might as well say "trust me," and we all know what that phrase really means when uttered by a politician.
Citizens shouldn't always "be positive" when watching their government. They shouldn't always "be negative," either. What we should always be is vigilant and aware. When people see the government doing something bad or going down the wrong path, it's not only our right to make negative comments, it's our responsibility. To do otherwise is to drink the Pollyanna-flavored Kool-Aid.
But hypocrisy has long been a trademark of the outgoing administration and its supporters. My favorite example was brought up again last night when the mayor talked about her support of the Constitution and quoted Samuel Adams in her farewell. I always found it telling that she and her supporters would tout their devotion to the Constitution during the same meetings in which she would crush First Amendment rights with heavy handed rules that often prohibited people from having their public say on important issues during council meetings. The Freedom of Speech thing wasn't so important when the mayor and city manager barred people from making their "silent protest" with donated food in 2007, after enforcing another anti-freedom rule which barred the Boy Scouts from going door-to-door for a food drive. (To be fair, that approach changed dramatically during the final six months of the mayor's term.)
Her supporters are also big talkers about freedom, then in the same breath demand background checks on anyone who dares to think about opening a business or taking a job at City Hall. It's funny when you think about it...who would have thought that "Big Brother" would actually be a woman?
The good news is that it's finally over, and the circus will be leaving. It's just a shame that the clowns at the back of the parade would take that opportunity to flip the bird to the crowd on the way out.

New Mayor

2011-06-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Mesquite is scheduled to get its new mayor and council on Tuesday night.
It should be an evening of celebration, particularly for the voters of Mesquite who demanded more transparency and openness from the city.
Almost like a nostalgic farewell, the Consent Agenda shows, once again, why the outgoing mayor and council were shown the door.
Why is an item about pay cuts to management on the Consent Agenda instead of the regular agenda where it could get a good airing?
Ditto for an item which will hire an attorney to defend the city against a lawsuit filed by one of the city's unions. For starters, why isn't our City Attorney handling this? It's precisely the kind of lawsuit a city attorney should be prepared to handle. But more importantly, why is this being effectively swept under the rug as a Consent Agenda item? Again, it's an important issue which needs to be discussed in front of the citizens.
Of course, what would a Mesquite City Council meeting be without an agenda item to pay more money to another consultant?
After renewing with the Robcyn consulting group at the last council meeting, without any pretense at putting such a contract out for bid, this time the council is set to extend a contract with another completely unnecessary consultant, the Furman Group.
The city has whacked longtime employees, but continues to pay big bucks to out-of-town consultants for work that some of our current staff could do.
It's a fitting swan song for a council which has wasted millions of dollars on consultants. And sadly, no surprise.
Good luck to the new mayor and council.