EDITORIAL: What A Difference A Year Makes

It was just last year in February of 2013; when Mr. Beau Woodring of Phoenix, Arizona strode into the Overton Community Center for a meeting of the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB). He entered the room with a spring in his step and the enthusiasm of optimism in his eye.

After all, how complicated could it be? Woodring had been tasked with presenting plans for a new retail store proposed for downtown Overton: the latest in the nationwide Dollar General store chain. And he had come to the meeting well prepared. Undoubtedly, he was thinking that this one would be easy. After all, the southern Nevada region had long been suffering with a painfully slow economy. And here he was offering the community a lifeline: bringing a small helping of economy development to a struggling rural area.

And struggling it was! With business and sales tax revenues coming in frightfully low for the past several years, the Clark County government had been sorely tightening its belt; contracting and eliminating services and reducing its staff. Woodring’s project was expected to generate in excess of $50,000 in annual sales tax revenue for the County. True it was a small fish in the ocean of urban Clark County. But at least it was a step in the right direction. Furthermore, with Nevada’s unemployment numbers still among the highest in the nation, a statistic keenly felt here in the Moapa Valley, this development was expected to generate approximately 12 new permanent jobs in the community. Admittedly not a huge number; and they wouldn’t be very sophisticated or skilled jobs; but every little bit helps. And Moapa Valley needed all the help it could get.

The MVTAB recognized these things and was willing to welcome the project with open arms. Woodring’s presentation was brief. There was no public opposition voiced. And the MVTAB gave quick and unanimous approval to his plans.

At one point in that evening’s discussion one of the MVTAB members asked Woodring when he expected to get started on the project.

“If you gave me a building permit today, we’d get started in the next week,” was his answer. “In other words, as soon as possible.”

Some of the MVTAB members peered over their glasses with a tired smile at this. It was obvious to them, and to most of the public in the room, that Mr. Woodring was not too familiar with the Clark County bureaucracy. In the interest of full disclosure, one MVTAB member even gave him a fair warning, suggesting that the developer might want to plan on it taking a bit longer than that. Nevertheless Woodring left the meeting with a positive outlook and with the full blessing of the MVTAB and the community wishing him godspeed.

All that was a little over a year ago. And what a difference a year makes!

Last week Mr. Woodring returned again to the MVTAB, after spending that year like Alice in Wonderland, deep down the Clark County rabbit hole. In the time since the board had last seen him, Woodring had apparently served a year-long sentence between the rock of the County Code on one hand and the hard place of an inflexible, over-zealous and contradictory County staff on the other. Gone now was the enthusiasm of optimism. In its place was a dull, tired appearance which can be likened to the poor fellow who has just spent several days straight standing in long lines at Disneyland with unruly young children in tow. All he wants to do now is find a way out of there as quickly as possible, and without having to spend any more money!

Of course, that is not what he said. On the contrary, Mr. Woodring was as courteous and professional in his second appearance before the MVTAB as he was at his first. He showed admirable restraint when talking about his bureaucratic tribulations of the past year. But the perceptive observer coulddetect a little more bitterness and a bit harder edge to his presentation this time around.

This was especially true when he talked about what the county code was now dictating to him. When he spoke about being required by Title 30 to complete full drainage studies, traffic studies, and to make costly roadside improvements all for a parcel of land that the applicant did not own, was not acquiring and had no plans to develop; Woodring seemed a little like a flailing swimmer just begging for a common sense lifeline from the community.

Of course, the MVTAB and the community gave him one. Once again, he left with the full approval and blessing of the board. Their common sense attitude and reasonable nature gave Woodring m a quick reality check; just a brief respite from the twilight zone of county bureaucracy to which he now must return.

All of this just begs some of the same old questions we’ve asked before. Why in the world does the County do this to new businesses trying to come into region? Given the economic climate, how can we afford to put good business prospects through this madness? Where has the common sense gone in our local government? With all of the talk lately on making Nevada business-friendly, how can we justify this kind of treatment of respectable new commercial enterprises wishing to locate here?

Of course, this is just the most recent example of how the inflexibility of Title 30 is detrimental to small business throughout Clark County; and how it is especially toxic to economic development in the rural areas.

The time has come for the county to loosen the shackles of Title 30 and bring some long-needed reform. The fact is that no single code, no matter how voluminous, can comprehend every unique instance in a region as diverse and broad-ranging as Clark County. Flexibility is required and a return to common sense is imperative.

Much of the trouble could be solved simply by allowing more decisions to be made locally, by the community members who know their territories best. Mr. Woodring’s problem, for example, could have been dispatched simply, and with all speed, if the local town board were empowered to employ common sense, adapt the code to the unique local circumstance, solve the problem and then send the applicant on his way once and for all. Instead they can only put a field dressing on his wounds, put his machete back in his hand and send him back into the jungle of contradictory bureaucracy to hack his way through.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it here again. It’s about time for Clark County to recognize that the challenges of building and running a small rural business are fundamentally different from, and in many cases greater than, those faced in the big city! It is time that the County government recognize that more flexible rural requirements should be developed and applied to small town businesses that will be limited in their resources by small town revenues. It is time to do away with the one-size-fits-all method of business regulation in Clark County.

Until some common sense and local flexibility can be applied to the county code, small businesses in small towns will always be at a disadvantage. And rural communities in southern Nevada will continue to fall behind and struggle for their economic survival.