Bunkerville TAB Has ‘No-Confidence’ In CCSD Central

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The Bunkerville Town Advisory Board (BTAB) has lost confidence in the Clark County School District (CCSD) central administration in Las Vegas to make plans beneficial to local kids. In a letter approved last week, the board declared a complete “lack of competence” seen from CCSD administration during the pandemic.

The item was brought before the board by BTAB member Brian Haviland. Haviland said he was tired of sitting back and watching what the CCSD has done to education for local kids over the past year.

“The reason I brought this is to say that we, as parents, are ready to put our kids back into the schools, whether the district wanted us to or not, and make them force us out,” Haviland said. “Since that time, the district has started to talk about allowing people back in (the schools). But the bottom line is that we should have been back a long time ago.”

“Moving forward, I want it to be known that, if the CCSD won’t allow in-person classes and extracurricular activities, we will support local residents in opening our schools without upper administration approval and reverting to local administrations’ guidance and reopening plans,” Haviland added.

Other board members expressed agreement with Haviland’s position. They pointed out that 16 of the 17 school districts in Nevada have already found a way to get back in schools and do sports as well.

“We have our kids going to Utah to play football and basketball and baseball and everything else,” added BTAB member Chad Jensen. “We haven’t seen any impact in our community for them going and participating in those things in a neighboring state so I really don’t understand.”
BTAB member Vernon Pollock made a motion to adopt the language in the letter. The motion was approved with a unanimous vote.

In a separate agenda item, the board unanimously approved a letter of support for the Southern Nevada Transit Coalition (SNTC) regarding recent changes to their bus routes in Mesquite and Bunkerville.
SNTC Director of Operations Anna Talamo explained that the Coalition, which operates Silver Rider bus lines in the Virgin Valley, is in the process of establishing a second route in the area.

“That would make it so that if a person from Bunkerville gets on the bus, they now no longer have to go through the whole route,” Talamo said. “There would be one route servicing Bunkerville into Mesquite and then there will be one that stays in Mesquite.”

Both routes would start and end at Walmart. But the two routes would have six common stops along Mesquite Blvd. Thus, riders could transfer from one route to another at any of those stops, without having to complete the entire loop, Talamo said.

In addition to the new routes, SNTC will be getting new vehicles to replace the old 2010 Chevrolet cutaways currently in use, many of which have in excess of 400,000 miles on them.

The Coalition had also worked with the City to secure a grant for new bus shelters along Mesquite Blvd. And an agreement had been reached with Regional Transportation Commission to use rehab shelters to be placed at stops in the residential areas of the routes, Talamo said.