By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
Members of the Town Advisory Boards for both Moapa and Moapa Valley were appointed last week by unanimous vote of the Clark County Commission.
The two-year, volunteer spots were actually supposed to be elected positions appearing on the November ballot. But since there was a shortage of candidates filing to runs, the decision fell to the Commissioners.
Applications from local residents interested in serving on the boards were accepted by county staff since October last year. The Commissioners chose whom to appoint from that pool applicants.
Moapa TAB appointees
Appointed to serve on the Moapa Town Advisory Board (MTAB) were incumbent board members Tim Watkins, Lynn Wren, Jamie Shakespeare and Bob Lyman. Newly appointed to the Moapa board was John Wray of the Warm Springs area.
In an interview with the Progress last week, Wren said that he was pleased, if a little surprised, to be chosen to serve on the board.
“I applied because I thought it was a good way that I could give back to this great community that has done so much for my wife and I,” Wray said.
Wray has lived in the area for the past 15 years. He retired in 2017 after a 45-year career in the mental health field.
Most recently he had worked for the past 15 years as an administrator at the Southern Nevada Developmental Health Center in Las Vegas.
Since retirement, Wray and his wife have sought to keep busy doing volunteer work. The couple is currently serving as site stewards at the Warm Springs Natural Area.
“We wanted to do something for this community that we have come to love,” Wray said. “That seemed interesting to us; to help keep that beautiful place open to the public.”
Wray said that he is interested in seeing additional industrial or manufacturing enterprises coming to the area. “We have all that industrial land along the railroad tracks up here,” Wray said. “I’d love to see more industry come in to provide some good jobs for people in the valley.”
Wray said that he looks forward to serving on the board and making a contribution.
“I know the people on the board and they are wonderful people,” he said. “I look forward to working with them and the community. I know that I can learn a lot from them.”
Moapa Valley TAB appointees
Only two incumbent board members are returning to the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) this year. Those include Gene Houston and Marjorie Holland. Newly appointed to the board were Lois Hall, Kristen Pearson and Megan Porter.
Lois Hall has lived in Moapa Valley for 15 years now. She is a co-owner with her husband of Cal’s Auto Repair in Overton. The two have owned that small business for about seven years now. Before that, Hall worked for former local real estate broker Dave Cook of Keller Williams Realty.
Hall said that she applied to serve on the MVTAB out of a desire to help neighbors who want to complete building projects or other improvements in the community.
In recent years, the Halls have completed a series of projects involving their business including a full remodel of the office space and an expansion of the garage. Through that process, Hall said that she had learned about the complexity of getting approvals through the county first hand.
In serving on the MVTAB, she hopes that her experience may be used to help others through similar processes.
“That is my number 1 priority,” Hall said last week. “I just want to be able to help my neighbor with additions or buildig permits or variances, whatever. It is an involved process. I’ve lived it. So I have a lot of empathy and I think I can help.”
Hall says that she has developed a good working relationship with County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick and her staff.
“They have always been so accessible and willing to help,” Hall said. “So those relationships might be able to help other people too.”
Hall has significant history of service in the community. In the past, she has served as president of the VFW Auxiliary organization. She has also served as Vice President of the Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce. And she is currently serving as Chamber secretary.
Hall said that she would like to see a stronger economic base in the area. “I’d like to see some small manufacturing operations locate here bringing some jobs to the area,” she said.
Hall also recognizes the need for some healthy residential growth in the community. She acknowledged that additional housing is needed here, especially for younger families.
“Custom homes starting at $300,000, like we have so much of here, are not starter homes,” Hall said.
But Hall also wants local development to be sensible. “I don’t think that we should build homes on top of each other, like they do in the city,” she said. “I think that we should stick to 1/3 acre lots or higher.”
Kristen Pearson was excited to hear the news that she had been appointed to the MVTAB. She had been looking for more opportunities to be involved in the community.
Pearson grew up in Las Vegas. She has worked as a Civil Service engineer in the defense industry for the past 25 years. She is currently working out of Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.
Pearson has lived in Moapa Valley for nearly four years. She moved here from California where she had been working about 20 years at Edwards Air Force Base.
She was drawn to locate in Moapa Valley because her parents, Gary and Jerri Pearson live here in Logandale. “It just made sense to make this our home,” Pearson said.
Pearson describes herself as an avid “horse person.” She has become involved with various activities at the Fairgrounds rodeo arena where she would love to see some improvements made.
“I’d really like to see some sort of shade cover be placed over the arena,” Pearson said. “There are a lot of people who use that facility. But it can be brutal in the blazing hot summer sun.”
Otherwise, Pearson admits that her vision for the future of the community is open. She looks forward to learning more about local issues and taking positions on them.
“I need a chance to get involved and see what is going on out there” Pearson said. “But come back to me in six months and I’ll have a different answer.”
Pearson did say that she would like to see more amenities and services come into the communities. She realizes that this requires some growth in the community.
But she would prefer to be wise about residential growth. She remembers what happened to the horse-owning rural dwellers when growth in the Las Vegas valley exploded in the late 1990s.
“I wouldn’t want to ruin the rural values of the community,” Pearson said. “I wouldn’t want to lose the ability to have horses and other animals and allow our kids the freedom that come from small-town life.”
Megan Porter and her family moved to Logandale about five years ago. Before that, they lived in Las Vegas for nine years. But she and her husband longed for a little slower pace.
“Since we are both from smaller areas than Las Vegas, we felt like (Logandale) was a good fit for us and our boys,” Porter said.
Porter and her husband have three sons who are active in sports and other outdoor activities. The family has also hosted three foreign exchange students from various European countries.
Porter said that she has served for a short time on a local committee established to review code violation comnplaints at the local level before they are sent to County Code Enforcement. The aim of the group is to find help from local groups to assist people in bringing their property into compliance before citations are issued.
“While serving on that committee, I realized that there are so many people in our valley willing to help others with a variety of needs,” she said.
Porter expressed a measured view toward growth in the community. “I know that growth and road designations are discussed a lot in the meetings,” she said. “But we also need to keep and preserve our culture and traditions that we have in this valley.”
Porter believes that any growth in Moapa Valley should be done in a way to best preserve those culture and traditions.
“If we choose as a community to grow our valley, then we need to be smart,” Porter said. “We need to do it in a way that preserves our community, whether it be residential, economic or industrial.”
