Senate Bill In Works To Change OPD Board

A bill has been introduced at the Nevada State Legislature that would significantly change the dynamic of the Overton Power District (OPD) Board of Directors. The result of a long negotiation between OPD and the City of Mesquite, Senate Bill 124 would add two members to the OPD Board.

This would change the OPD Board from a five to a seven member board. According to the current draft language, one of the additional members would be elected by Mesquite residents to represent the City of Mesquite. The other additional seat would be an at-large representative chosen from, and by, the entire OPD service area.

Currently each of the five board members represent one of the five traditional communities in the OPD: Bunkerville, Logandale, Mesquite, Moapa and Overton. The proposed bill would give two, and possible even three, of the board seats to Mesquite representatives.

Officials of Mesquite feel that this would bring the City to a position of equity that has been lacking for some time. According to census documents, Mesquite’s population is approaching 20,000 people. According to some counts, that is nearly twice the population living in all the rest of the district combined. But the Moapa/Moapa Valley still maintains three board seats. Virgin Valley only has two, with just one for Mesquite.

“In keeping with the fundamentals of the representative democracy that we live in, we would just like to see more representation to better reflect our population,” Hacker said.

Hacker said that the five member board raises inevitable questions of whether adequate representation is taking place. He used the example of the OPD board decision last week to raise power rates. “I’m certainly not making a judgement on whether raising rates was necessary or not,” Hacker said. “But with broader representation they might have been able to talk to a broader constituency. Five people can only talk to so many people.”

In the past, the OPD has been resistant to a change in its board when the subject has come up. This is the second time that this proposal has gone to the Legislature. The first time was in 2007 when Mesquite raised the issue. At that time, the proposal would have given Mesquite both of the additional seats without an at-large option. But the OPD board was not in agreement with this. Still, the bill made it through the Assembly and was passed to the Senate. When it reached Senator Warren Hardy, who represents the OPD area, it stopped. Seeing the obvious strong differences, Hardy sent the issue back for the two parties to work on, and reach, a resolution.

Over the past two years, the two entities reached a general agreement on the concept of a seven member board. “Our board was not opposed to the idea but didn’t fully support it either,” said OPD General Manager, Delmar Leatham. “They still wondered what was the real reason for the change; why there needs to be a change at all.”

Leatham said that the district has been operating fine for decades and still serves its constituents well.

This year, however, a request was sent to the Legislature to reopen the matter. The bill draft that resulted was not to either party’s liking. First, it once again gave both of the additional seats to Mesquite, which was not acceptable to the OPD. Secondly, the language of the bill merely gave the OPD board the option of instituting the change; or not. This was not acceptable to Mesquite.

The third hurdle was not popular with either side. It was an amendment proposed by County Commissioner Tom Collins to change the way that board vacancies are filled in NRS 318 districts like OPD. Currently, if a vacancy comes up in the board of a 318 district, the board has 30 days to appoint a new board member. After the 30 days, the appointment goes to the Board of County Commissioners. Under the proposed amendment, the Commissioners would fill all board vacancies. Neither side liked this

“We didn’t feel that it was necessary to involve the county in the board selection process,” said Hacker. “We would just as soon have the voters decide directly.”

So both sides worked with legislators on compromise language for the bill. One of the two new board positions became an at-large position. The change to the board became a requirement rather than an option. And to address the amendment on the vacancy selection, the bill stated that the change would not be instituted until the next general election of 2010. Thus, the new vacant positions would not need to be appointed but elected by the voters.

While this provides something of a solution, OPD Board members are not entirely content. In a board meeting held on Wednesday, March 18, OPD officials expressed concern that the amendment on vacancy selection would be back to haunt the bill. “We’re making sausage here,” Leatham told the Board. “Everyone has had their hands in this and it is out of our control. Anything could be added back to it before it is done.”

After some discussion, Board members agreed that, while the bill expanding to a seven member board was generally acceptable, any change to the vacancy selection process as it currently exists in NRS 318 would be unacceptable. “I think we need to give very clear instructions on this,” said OPD Board Chairman Larry Moses. “If an amendment is added to this that changes the (vacancy) selection process, we need to let them know right up front that we are strongly opposed to that.”