By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley is now 2 for 2! In the last few months, two instances of local anonymous complaints have been lodged with “the powers that be” at Clark County. Amazingly, both times, the complaints have been dispatched with remarkable and unusual speed. Out here in the rurals, we have been so unaccustomed to such immediate action on our behalf by the County, it is hard to know what to think about it. It certainly leads one to ask: What in the world has so drastically changed this year that we suddenly have become so important?
The first instance was that awful combat zone up at the Logandale Sports Complex along the north side of Bunnell Ave. An anonymous complainer blew the whistle on that mess a couple of months ago. And thank goodness they did! As a result, the community was informed that the entire area was just abuzz with ATV riding hooligans threatening death and destruction to the whole neighborhood! Even though no accidents or injuries have actually been recorded there, nor have there been any ATV-related citations given there by the local police, and no complaints from anyone in the immediate neighborhood save that lone anonymous one; still it was good to know that this awful travesty was going on.
Remarkably, the County found money in its overstrapped budget to remedy this horrible danger. Of course, the actual cost was modestly understated. We won’t discuss how much it took for the major earthwork project of quickly bulldozing up a 7 ft high berm along that roadway. Nor should we worry about the cost of levelling the same offensive atrocity a few weeks later. We were told that the fence which will replace the berm, will only cost around $20,000; a mere drop in the bucket. Still, $20,000 would be a big drop in the bucket for, say, the Overton Senior Center budget; or many other organizations and projects in town that could desperately use the funding. But I suppose we should simply trust our “powers that be” that these funds were best employed to save those unruly Bunnell Ave. residents from themselves.
The second complaint surfaced a couple of weeks ago at the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board meeting. This time, an unnamed informant had complained that customers were actually parking their cars on either side of the road at Virginia Ave. just south of Ace Hardware in downtown Overton. Well, with the two or three cars that are typically parked there, a motorist travelling east on that little sidestreet might miss the stop sign on the corner and inadvertently pull right into the traffic of Moapa Valley Blvd. without ever thinking they ought to stop and look first.
Well heavens! Come to think of it, that could happen to any one of us! Imagine! Moapa Valley residents have been parking cars along there for well over half a century and no one has ever stopped to think about this grave and eminent danger. It is just remarkable that, in all those years, there haven’t been any accidents or deaths at that intersection? Still, you never know!
There was no mention about what the county-proposed remedy would cost. It can’t be much though. Just a bunch of engineering hours. Then there is the crew and equipment needed to stripe the parking spaces and relocate the stop sign to make it more visible.
Thanks heavens for the current economic downturn! During the times when this region was booming, no one would have ever given this project a second thought. The county staff were all too busy taking care of big projects around Las Vegas. Now that there is a recession on, though, there are apparently plenty of county staff waiting around for things like this to do. It is truly heart-warming that our community’s deep bench of anonymous complainers can keep them so busy.
In this case, the final result will certainly solve this serious problem. Bright bold lines will be painted on the pavement to clearly mark out the exact same spaces where folks have been parking, without the aid of lines, for more than half a century! That should clear up all the confusion.
One thing is certain, though. It was so refreshing, this time around, that the county “powers that be” at least consulted the community’s leaders and the affected business owners before just jumping in and throwing up another berm. That’s another thing that we are not accustomed to around here. And while it isn’t quite full-fledged local decision-making, at least we can say that the community maybe felt like it had a say in the matter this time. Perhaps we should just be content that it was almost like the real thing.
