By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
The Nevada State Assembly District 20 has not had a representative who hails from the northeast Clark County region for over 40 years. But Republican candidate Cresent Hardy from Mesquite is looking to change all that. Hardy has spent the past few months criss-crossing the district from Laughlin to Henderson, Boulder City to Mesquite, spreading the message of his campaign. He paid a visit to downtown Overton last week and granted an interview to the Progress staff. Then he met with the Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors during its monthly lunchtime meeting at Sugars Restaurant.
Hardy is a fourth-generation resident of Mesquite. He is proud to point out that his grandfather was the first white baby born in the town. Cresent and his wife Peri, have been married for 28 years and are the proud parents of four children.
Hardy brings to his campaign over two decades of public service experience. He has served as the Mesquite Public Works Director, a member of the Virgin Valley Water District and as a two- term member of the Mesquite City Council. He has also been involved in organizations like the Salvation Army, Angel Tree and Boy Scouts of America. Hardy served as Chairman of the Board for Mesa View Regional Hospital during the first two years of its operation.
Hardy defines his position on political issues as “solid conservative, both fiscally and socially”. He says that the main priority of the upcoming legislature will be to find a balance to the budget. His plan for doing that is to reduce the size of government.
“We need to cut, cut and then cut some more,” Hardy said in regard to state government spending. “We don’t need more taxes. What we need is more efficient programs.”
Hardy said he would drastically cut spending on many programs and totally eliminate others. “We have become all to accustom to having government step in and take care of our problems and we have become dependent on those programs,” Hardy said. “But government has shown us again and again that it can’t run an efficient business.”
So Hardy would prefer to return many of these social service functions back to the communities and to the residents who live there. “The people in the communities need to start looking after themselves and taking on the responsibility of helping one another,” he said. “If we leave the dollars in the community to allow services to be met locally; if the state stops taking money out of the communities and the federal government stops taking money from the state, there would be more resources at the local level to handle many of these problems more efficiently. And I believe people would step forward and fill the void more efficiently than the government could.”
Hardy admits that this conservative strategy will require some real discipline at the legislature. “There will be some hard decisions to make,” he said. “But over the last couple of years, as a business owner I’ve made a lot of hard decisions just like that; some of the toughest in my life.”
Hardy owns a general engineering contractor business that he still calls a family business. Two years ago, the company was cranking with 150 full time employees on its payroll. Today the company is down to only 20 employees.
“It is a tough decision when you have to lay-off a long-time faithful employee when he doesn’t deserve to be laid off,” Hardy said. “But a lot of us in small business America have had to make those kinds of decisions over the past couple of years. I think that it is time that our government entities should have to do the same thing.”
Hardy said he would recommend that every state government entity, large and small, make a report on the impact of a 15-20% cut in their budget. Then tough decisions could be made by the legislature based on those reports.
He would also take a close look at wages and benefits of public employees in the state and pull them back into line with what has gone on in the private sector.
Furthermore, Hardy sees a lot of waste in the way the state deals with unemployment benefits. “I think that it is sad to just hand a paycheck to folks who are not working,” Hardy said. “There are so many things that need to be done in the state.” He suggests the formation of work projects similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s; also benefits paid to recipients who can show they are completing education courses to train them in new job skills. “People need a job not just a paycheck,” Hardy said. “I believe that folks need a hand up, not a handout.”
The real answer to the state’s economic woes, though, is economic growth and diversification, Hardy said. To bring that about, Hardy believes in offering incentives to business for developing in Nevada. “Rather than placing additional tax burdens on the business we have here already, we should be actively finding ways to draw new business to the state,” he said.
Hardy has some experience in doing just that. During his two terms as Mesquite City Councilman, he helped bring many new businesses to that city. “I believe that, even if you get only 80% of the standard tax revenue from a new business because of offering generous incentives, you’re still better off than if you never had the business come in at all.”
Hardy believes that another important facet to economic diversification is found at Yucca Mountain, the proposed nuclear waste facility at the Nevada Test Site. “I’m all for using Yucca Mountain for the good of the State,” he said. “It has created good jobs and commerce in Nevada for years and years. Why should we close it? It could be a great asset to the state in research and development of nuclear energy. We should be taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity.”
Still, Hardy recognizes that Nevada is not going to see true economic diversification until education becomes a higher priority in the State. “I believe that education is the real key to turning the State’s economy around in the long run,” he said. “Education can no longer be the bottom of the barrel. It has to be more of a priority.”
Hardy believes that education dollars should be better directed to where it matters most: in the classroom. “Good teachers ought to be rewarded, encouraged and allowed to do what they do best – teach our children,” Hardy said.
Hardy also believes that the decision-making surrounding education of children should be returned to the communities; to the parents and administrators who are closest to the students and who know best their local needs.
“The majority of our school costs are spent on a huge administrative bureaucracy that has little to do with the classroom,” Hardy said. “Decisions regarding education should be made locally by parents and educators, not by bureaucrats 60 miles away in Las Vegas, or worse 400 miles away in Carson City…or even worse yet 3,000 miles away in Washington DC.”
The empowerment concept, as it exists at Moapa Valley High School, is a positive direction; but that’s only a start, Hardy believes. “I am a big believer in charter schools and vouchers,” Hardy said. “If the private sector can do it better, we should let them do it. I think that we should let the education dollars follow the students.”
In the realm of management of public lands, Hardy also tends toward bringing the decisions to a more local level. He believes that the vast tracts of public lands in Nevada ought to be managed by state-level agencies rather than at the federal level. “The federal government should allow us to make the decision on the uses of the land; on where to allow mining, ranching, agriculture and so on,” he said. “The state has a better idea of how to use and preserve its lands than people who have never been here. We have a vested interest in making sure that our lands are used and preserved properly.”
A strong believer in term limits, Hardy says that he has no ambitions to be a career politician. Rather, he sees himself as a citizen public servant. “Some people have said that I am crazy to run for this office this year,” Hardy said. “They’ve said that it will be the toughest session the State has seen in a long time. But I feel like this is the time that I can make a real difference for the better.”
“I don’t profess to be the sharpest pencil in the box,” Hardy said, smiling. “But I have never been afraid to work hard for what I believe in.”
