By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
Submitted July 2, 2008
The Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) voted to make changes to its districting and straw poll selection procedures at a meeting held Wednesday, June 25.
According to the change, straw poll voting will be done at-large, and districts will be redrawn, with each MVTAB member being assigned to represent a specific district.
Previously, the MVTAB bylaws have divided the community into five districts. All Moapa Valley voters have been allowed to vote for five candidates; choosing one candidate for each district. Board members were required to live in the district that they represent.
In recent years, though, that system has presented problems. Currently, there are two MVTAB members who do not live in the districts they represent. Jay Young, who represents an Overton district, moved to Logandale midway during his term. Logandale resident, Gene Houston, was appointed to the Board earlier this year to represent the district of former MVTAB member Kurt Lytle; despite the fact that Houston does not reside in that district.
In previous meetings the MVTAB has heard argument that the districting policy for the Board should be tightened up. It was proposed that the straw poll vote should be conducted by district only; that each voter should cast a vote only for the candidate that will represent his/her district. “My concern is that at-large voting in a community like this just amounts to little more than a popularity contest,” said MVTAB member Rik Eide in a discussion held at a Board Meeting in May.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Logandale resident Billy Mildice presented an idea to tighten up the board’s districting. His plan would have created districts out of the community’s five existing voting precincts. It would then keep the straw poll voting only within those districts. “It is true, the straw poll is nothing but a popularity contest,” Mildice said. “But you should be popular within your district. The people who live in your district should vote for you.”
But Board members were concerned about the idea of adding another layer of complexity on the, otherwise informal, straw poll process. The straw poll has traditionally been conducted on election day, aside from the official polls, by unofficial community volunteers.
According to Alice Crites, who has served many years as the straw poll coordinator, these unofficial volunteers are not allowed to require identification from participants in the straw poll, for privacy reasons. Crites points out that this makes it difficult to track who has voted and who has not; as well as who should or should not in a specific district.
MVTAB members expressed doubt whether the informal straw poll was really worth the extra effort that strict districting would require. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but all of this straw polling is just a suggestion to the County Commissioners on who we would like to see appointed,” said MVTAB member Jay Young. “We could go to all the trouble of this and still have the Commissioners choose who they want anyway.”
MVTAB Chairwoman, Judy Metz, said that the popularity contest idea wasn’t necessarily a negative thing. “In a small town like this, the straw poll does seem a lot like a popularity contest,” she said. “But these people are popular because of what they do for their community; because of the hours of time they have put in. The people who have done this for years are the ones that the voters know. I don’t see that as a bad thing.”
Metz also had no problems with getting rid of districting policies. “I care as much about things that are going on in Logandale as I do for the Overton area where I live,” Metz said. “And I know these men from Logandale feel the same way about issues in Overton. The fact is that we live in Moapa Valley and we are one community. Whatever way we vote, we are doing it for what we feel is right for the whole community.”
MVTAB member, Guy Doty, agreed with Metz on at-large voting. But he also believed that some kind of districting was important. Doty said that the community should be divided into five districts of nearly equal population and that a board member should be assigned to each one. “I think that it is valuable to have an expert assigned to each district,” Doty said. “But it isn’t necessary that he/she should live in that district. Right now we have two board members who don’t live in the district they represent and I really don’t think that this hurts us.”
Metz made a motion that the straw poll voting be done ‘at-large’. MVTAB members would then be assigned to represent one of five district; but with no requirement that the members live in the district they represent. The motion approved with a unanimous vote.
