The new ordinance introduced in Las Vegas last week to the Board of County Commissioners is a small step in the right direction for the outlying areas of the county. To be brief, the ordinance would bring those few remaining family farms into compliance with county land use requirements at last. It would also allow the operators of those farms to sell their livestock or produce on site without having to undergo a full-blown zone change for the privilege. Of course, that is certainly a positive step; at least on paper.
But it should be remembered that we aren’t talking about opportunistic ag producers who have suddenly flown in by night to start black-ops farms in violation of county code. No, the folks we are talking about have been farming in this community for generations. With names like Hardy, Whitney and Robison, none of these people are examples of a ‘johnny-come-lately’ to the community. Rather, these are the final hold-outs of a past agricultural generation. Despite a century-long shift in the nation’s ag markets and the ever increasing opportunity cost of local irrigation water; both of which have made the financials of old-school farming very difficult to pencil out; these folks just keep on farming. Maybe they do it out of sheer stubbornness, but it is definitely out of a love for local agriculture. One thing is clear, though: as far as this handful of local farmers is concerned their land use hasn’t changed in over 50 years.
Instead it is the county code that has shifted in more recent decades; right under these farmers’ feet. As the Las Vegas valley has grown, Clark County has become ever more urban-centered. Of a necessity, focus has shifted from the relatively small town and rural country settings of prior times to the dense Las Vegas city-scape of today. And so, at some point, we gradually were brought to a place where the urban complexities of the county code are no longer in touch with what is actually happening, and has always been happening, on the ground in the rural areas.
Commissioner Tom Collins deserves credit for sending the county staff on a year-long quest to bring this small reality check to the county code as it deals with outlying areas. Of course, it should be noted that he, himself, has a vested interest in it. Tom’s own cattle, lazily unaware that they are out of compliance with county code, have been quietly grazing on a local residentially-zoned parcel for quite some time. Even so, the ordinance as presented is a good starting point.
But there is so much more needed to bring the voluminous codes of local government and other regulatory agencies into sync with the small town reality. The fact of the matter is, agriculture is no longer a viable economic engine for Moapa Valley. It is nice to see green fields and all, but with irrigation water last trading at $30,000-$50,000 a share agriculture just can’t be considering as an up-and-coming local industry. To survive, this community needs new industry, new commerce and, most importantly, new jobs. And that’s not the commuting-to-Vegas kinds of jobs, but local jobs right here.
Unfortunately, when opportunities arise for local business development, the inflexibility of the urban-centered codes have seemed to be stacked against us. In recent years, we have seen a number of solid proposals brought forward to build new and respectable commercial buildings in this community. None of them have yet come to fruition. In each case, the county code poses an endless maze of requirements and delays from which it takes years to emerge. Most of these projects never do emerge. Instead those urban-centered codes have been used to beat down the small-town enterprise until it is forced to retreat and just cut its losses.
This should not be happening in such bleak economic times. Rather the gates should be left opened and the way cleared to encourage new business and industry to locate here in the valley. As a small community, our leaders should be able to go out and offer incentives to leaders of business and industry for locating in this community and for bringing jobs here. But with no real local autonomy, no real local leadership, we are just a small rural voice drowned out by an overwhelming sea of urban interest. And when a possible prospect does take a glance in our direction he/she quickly sees that the layers of red tape and regulation are exactly the same here as they would be in the urban areas of the county. With no other incentives to offer, why would he keep his eye focused here?
Make no mistake, the current ordinance is a noble effort. But it is a mere drop in the ocean compared to what needs to be done. The fact is that the reality for rural areas are quite different than that of urban Clark County. Indeed it is even more complicated than that. The needs and visions of each rural community in the county are also quite unique from any other. So how can one set of over-arching codes and regulations, forged in the halls of urban Clark County, ever be able to serve all of these unique needs appropriately? They simply cannot.
The answer is simple, more local autonomy is needed. To bring a true reality check to the county code, each rural community town board ought to be duly elected. Then each board ought to be given a measure of true autonomy to make its own rules, spend its own budget and rule its own destiny. As long as all the power is concentrated in the Clark County Commission, the rurals will always be under-served, under-represented and under-developed.
