Commissioners Approve New Town Boundaries

The Clark County Board of Commissioners (BCC) approved an ordinance to redraw the town boundary lines in northeast Clark County at a meeting held on Tuesday, June 3. All commissioners in attendance voted in favor of the ordinance as proposed, except Commissioner Tom Collins who voted against the ordinance. Collins said that he felt there were still points of disagreement among the communities that needed additional negotiations.

The changes followed the recommendations of a May 19 meeting which brought together representatives from all three northeast county town advisory boards to work on the issue. County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani chaired and moderated the committee. At the May 19 meeting, all three town board representatives signed off on the map and agreed to the negotiated boundaries.

“We spent several hours going through maps, drawing lines, erasing lines and trying to negotiate and we settled on the boundary lines here,” Giunchigliani told the commissioners on Tuesday. “Everyone signed on their portion of the map to approve it. I feel that is what I have to present to this board for consideration.”

The boundary line adjustment has been an ongoing issue for the past two years. It sprang from a need to bring a proposed major development project into a single town and tax district. The Riverview project spans the Glendale/Moapa area on either side of I-15.

The three town advisory boards involved: Bunkerville, Moapa and Moapa Valley; initially worked independently for some time on slightly different town boundary maps. By early this year, they had come to a point that, many felt, was close to a consensus.

In mid-February, Commissioner Collins proposed a different plan to County staff. Collins said that the town boards had taken long enough discussion the issue and that action needed to be taken immediately to consolidated the Riverview property before a July 1 tax deadline. He claimed that his plan would solve the developer’s problem as well as force all of the parties to come to the table after July 1 to negotiate a final solution.

Collins’ plan would have added nearly 109,000 acres to the Moapa town boundaries, land which had previously been part of the towns of Bunkerville and Moapa Valley. Most of that land, the area directly north of the Moapa Valley town on either side of I-15 up to six miles past the Carp/Elgin exit, had been requested for annex by Moapa Valley. This would have given desired access to the lower valley community to the two I-15 interchanges and jurisdiction over what the town residents consider an important viewshed area.

Collins’ plan was proposed to the three town boards and was accepted by the Moapa board. But it was adamantly rejected by the Moapa Valley and Bunkerville boards.

When Collins’ plan reached the BCC on May 5, Commissioners expressed discomfort with pressing the approval of the plan over the objections of the two communities. The Commissioners voted to hold the decision for thirty days and form a committee to try and work out the differences and come to consensus. Each town board sent one representative to the committee. Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani agreed to work with the communities to find a common solution.

In a May 19 committee meeting, all three representatives agreed to allow Moapa to annex the land that would resolve the developer’s issues. A compromise was also reached whereby Moapa would receive the land north, and Moapa Valley would get the land south of the I-15 running to a point east all the way to mile marker 106. Bunkerville agreed to give up this land in return for the annexation of a huge tract of land to its immediate south which includes much of the Gold Butte area. It was this plan that was finally proposed last week to the BCC.

During the public comment period at last Tuesday’s BCC meeting, Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck wondered why the City of Mesquite had not been involved in the process. “I was disappointed that Mesquite was not informed or invited to engage in discussions before this item was placed for consideration,” she said.

Holecheck wanted assurances that the redrawn boundaries would not affect the City’s proposed relocation of a new airport on the Mormon Mesa at exit 108, nor its plans to annex an additional 4900 acres specified in legislation that had been presented to the U.S. Congress last year.

Giunchigliani responded that the proposed ordinance would have no affect on Mesquite’s proposed expansion. “There was no nefarious conspiracy theory on the part of Bunkerville to ask for anything more,” Giunchigliani said.

Giunchigliani also said that the ordinance would not affect the status of recent conservation efforts for the Gold Butte region. “I wanted to make sure that this will not affect any conservation area at Gold Butte and what Congress is working on,” she said. “Staff has advised that there is absolutely no impact.”

President of the Friends of Gold Butte organization, Nancy Hall, then made a related comment. “I am hearing the town boards say that they gain absolutely nothing by having this map change, except that they get to be a stakeholder at the table,” she said. “But aren’t they are already a stakeholder at the table? Do they not already participate in all of the decisions that are being made in Gold Butte?”

Hall referenced the bill proposed by Shelly Berkley (D-Nev) last Fall to give the Gold Butte area National Conservation Area (NCA) status. Friends of Gold Butte had worked with Berkley on drafting the bill. Hall recalled that the Bunkerville town board had come out strongly opposed to the NCA plan.

“As well, they came out against the (BLM) routes designation,” Hall stated. “It took ten years for the BLM to complete that because of all the infighting of these town boards.”

“This may not change anything on paper, but you know it changes things,” Hall concluded. “It changes it in their minds that, you know, ‘this belongs to me’ and now it is on paper’. It empowers them.”

After the public comment period, Collins expressed his position on the proposed ordinance. “The map that I presented in May was to bring people to the table,” he said. “I think that it did.” But Collins insisted that, despite the compromise reached by the committee, there were still people in the communities that were unsatisfied with the results.

Collins introduced another map and pointed to a large BLM disposal area along I-15 in the rough vicinity of the Ute exit. The area currently is part of the Moapa town. “Some folks in Moapa Valley have told me they would like to have that area that gives about four miles of I-15 frontage in disposable BLM land,” he said. “Unlike the land up north that they settled on that is in suspended BLM land and is not in a disposal area.”

“I wonder about the compromises made by the committee,” Collins continued, “where Moapa Valley is gaining only about 100 acres of disposable BLM land versus if they went west and cut off 15-20 miles of tranportation into Moapa Valley through that disposable land…” rather than up through Carp/Elgin.

Collins stated that back in May he had requested the BCC to approve his plan as presented and then allow him to sit down with the communities and work out detailed changes like these that would better suit everyone.

Collins asked members of the committee who were present at the meeting to verify for the record that the final plan being proposed was exactly what their community wanted. “I’d like each town board member to come down and say that this compromise map is exactly what they want and that they’ll never want to change,” he said.

Moapa Town Board member, Don Davis stated that he felt that the agreement reached by the committee had equitably divided up the land. “These three town boards came together and made an agreement that is suitable to all of them and I would encourage you to accept it as it is,” he said.

“Yes, Commissioner Collins,” said Moapa Valley Town Board member Guy Doty. “We sat in committee and we agreed to the boundaries as are before you today.”

Collins pressed Doty regarding the disposal land near the Ute exit that, Collins felt, was being left on the table.

“In the committee, I tried to negotiate to include that in the Moapa Valley, but was not successful,” Doty responded. “But we are okay with that. Compromises are made and you don’t get everything you want. We are okay with that.”

Giunchigliani made a motion to approve the ordinance as presented.

“This goes back to my motion in May,” Collins said. “To solve the needs for the July deadline was the intent of that action. I believe that there is more work to be done after July 1. For that reason I’m not going to support the motion. And I’d encourage you that are supporters of that area, that represent most of it, I’d appreciate your support.”

Commissioner Steve Sisolak acknowledged all of the work that Giunchigliani had done to reach the compromise and then stated, “I think that we need to move forward with this. It will be to everybody’s benefit.”

“When you say ‘never want to make a change’ I don’t think anything is ‘never’,” Sisolak continued. “So for that reason I will support the motion.”

The motion was put to a vote. Reid, Brager, Brown and Sisolak voted in favor. Collins was opposed.