Incorporation Committee Moves Forward

The Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce held a community forum on Thursday, February 19 on the subject of Moapa Valley becoming an incorporated city. About 65 people attended the meeting which was held at the Moapa Valley High School Student Center. Presenting at the meeting were members of the ad hoc Moapa Valley Committee for Incorporation.

“This effort is not just a knee-jerk reaction,” explained Committee member Rik Eide in his introduction. “It has been ongoing for quite a while.

Committee member Ben Robison pointed out that the Committee had made a report to the Chamber membership in March of 2008. “For that meeting we had prepared some rough budget numbers that were very preliminary at that time,” Robison said. “Those numbers gave us hope for moving forward in the process but they still didn’t give us all of the answers. To get those answers we have to start the process.”

Robison then outlined what the general process was to get started. He explained that the first step was to make a request to the state and the county that the community is interested in looking into incorporation. Among other things, this step required that a petition be submitted that had been signed by at least 30% of registered voters in the proposed city. Thus, the Committee is planning a signature drive to begin early in March to start gathering the necessary signatures for the petition, Robison said.

“We will need a lot of volunteer help to gather these signatures,” Robison said. “That is where we will look to the members of this community for help.”

Committee member Ryan Wheeler explained that once the petition and other materials are filed, a full study is done to determine the financial feasibility of the proposed city. “At that point, we step back and let the experts determine if it is feasible,” Wheeler said. “They look into all of the tough questions; taxes, police, fire etc; and give us the information. Then a report will come back to us that everyone can read and we can decide from there.”

Only after all of the information is made available would the final decision, whether or not to incorporate, be made in a general election.

After the brief presentation, Eide opened the floor to questions from the audience. Attendees had many questions and Eide made it clear that answers to all of them may not yet be available.

A question was asked about how long the process would take from the time the initial request was made to the point when the newly incorporated city was established. Robison answered that the Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 266 dealing with incorporation of cities was very specific about the timing of each step along the way.He stated that he had sketched out a timeline based on NRS 266 and had estimated that if the request was submitted in the next couple of months the detailed feasibility study would be completed by the summer of 2010. This would enable a general election to be held in November of 2010. If the result of that election was to incorporate then the city would begin operation at the beginning of the next fiscal year: July 2011.

“That would be the scenario if all of the timelines in NRS are strictly adhered to,” Robison said.

Another question that arose was how the new city would address big problems such as expansion of waste water facilities or flood control that have long been an issue.

Eide, having served many years on the local Sewer Advisory Committee, specifically addressed the sewer component. He stated that the Clark County Water Reclamation had recently instituted a district-wide levelized rate program to share the costs of projects like the one being built in the Moapa Valley. It would, thus, make sense to have that project continue being served by the district, Eide said.

But, he said, even for projects of this kind, there might still be advantages to being incorporated. He pointed out that under the newly passed federal economic stimulus package, funding was being made available for projects that were ready to move forward now. “Our sewer expansion project is a shovel-ready project,” Eide said. “If we were a city we could go after the federal grant money to complete the project now. As it is, we have to wait for the county to chase those grants and then hope that they spend the funds here.”

Shari Lyman, a resident of Moapa, asked the Committee if the town of Moapa was being included in the plans. Lyman expressed a desire that Moapa be included.

Eide responded that Moapa had not been included in the plans. He stated that Committee members had presented the plans for incorporation in a Moapa Town Board Meeting back in May 2008 but had been told that the community was not interested in being included.

“We would love to have the upper valley involved,” Eide said. “But we were told to stay out. We don’t want to start a fight so we are proceeding on our own.”

Another question expressed concern for the fate of county employees living in the community. There were worries about what would happen to their jobs.

“That is a valid concern,” Eide said. “This change would have an affect on those people. But new opportunities would be open to apply for in the new city as well. There will be new positions opening there although they may look a little different than the current county positions look.”

An inquiry was made whether any comparative study had been done on the city of Fernley, Nevada. Fernley was the most recent city to incorporate in the state; having become a city in 2001. The question asked whether anything could be learned from the recent experience of Fernley.

Eide stated that he had visited Fernley a couple of years ago and had discussed these matters with city officials. “The mayor at the time told me that he had fought incorporation all the way when it was being proposed,” Eide said. “But once they did it and the city was functioning, he wondered what had taken them so long.”

Information on the subject of incorporation is available at the Committee’s website atwww.moapavalleyinc.info.