City Council Digest (March 13, 2024)

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The Mesquite City Council met on Tuesday evening, March 12 and heard a number of agenda items. What follows is a summary of some of the more important actions and discussions of the council.

Pollution reduction grant
The Mesquite City Council approved a resolution for the city to collaborate on a competitive federal grant through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction program.

Jodi Bechtel of Clark County Environment and Sustainability explained that, in this program, Mesquite would be partnering with various other municipalities and agencies in the region including Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Regional Transportation Commission and Southern Nevada Water Authority. The partnerships would be in hope of making the application more competitive, she said.

The collective grant application is for up to $500 million. Mesquite’s portion would be around $5.6 million.

Bechtel said that the plan was to establish a regional building and home improvement hub where residents, particularly low income community members, could come for a full conservation assessment on their home.

The assessment would identify areas where improvements to energy efficiency and water conservation could be made.

The hub would then bring together different programs for which the residents might be eligible to fund the projects. There would also be money available from the grant to help where other programs would not, Bechtel said. She estimated that the program could help around 250 homes in Mesquite.

Council members Wes Boger and Patti Gallo voiced concerns about the resolution’s possible unforeseen costs to the city. They were worried that additional staff would be needed, or staff time would be required, to administer the grant. They also worried that the program might eventually result in new environmental regulations being required of the City and its residents.

Bechtel assured that the grant would cover the administration including either hiring a nonprofit group or groups to administer the program, or bringing on new county staff to do it.

In addition, she emphasized that the program was entirely voluntary. No new restrictions or regulations were involved.

Councilman Brian Wursten said the he did not necessarily approve of the vast sum of federal dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act had put towards this effort. But since the money was being spent, he wanted to make sure some of it came to Mesquite. He pointed out that if the city refused the program, the funding would just go somewhere else.

In the end, the council voted to approve the resolution in a 3-2 vote. Boger and Gallo were the dissenting votes.

Dancing Boots Subdivision
The Council approved a tentative map which proposed to subdivide 47.3 acres into 122 single family residential lots in Sun City. The property is located on the north side of Falcon Ridge Parkway east of the Conestoga Golf Club in the Anthem Planned Unit Development.

The age-restricted non-gated community project, being called the Dancing Boots subdivision, would include more than 16 acres of commonly-held open space. It’s overall density would be 2.57 units per acre.

With no discussion from council, and no public comments offered, the item was approved with a unanimous vote of the council.

Riverside Mini Mart permit
The council delayed a decision on a request for a Conditional Use Permit to approve the sales of all liquor at the proposed Riverside Mini Mart located at the northwest corner of Riverside and Hafen Lane.

In a presentation to the council City Planner Simon Kim said that, according to city code, the sale of liquor through a drive-up window is prohibited. This – paired with the proximity of the store to residential areas, schools and churches in the neighborhood – would make the permit issuance problematic, Kim said.

But the applicant, Ron Gagliano, insisted that liquor sales at the location would be done, not through a drive-thru window, but wholly through the internet. Shoppers would place their orders online and then come to the store at a later time to pick up their order, he said.

The orders would then be fulfilled by curbside delivery in the store’s 3-space parking lot. This would be similar to online liquor sales currently taking place at stores like Smith’s or Walmart.
Gagliano emphasized that drive thru orders of alcohol would not be accepted at the store. Rather alcohol sales would be restricted to online orders only.

Kim said that the difference was that Walmart and Smiths were primarily walk-in locations; with internet sales added on. The Mini Mart was not designed to accept walk in traffic. Rather it has been only been approved as a drive-three convenience store, he said.

During the public hearing, several residents came forward to speak against the issuance of the permit. Most cited safety issues for the neighborhood in allowing the drive-up sale of alcohol.

Noting the similarities between online sales at other stores, Wursten asked City Attorney Brian Pack specifically if there was a legal basis that the council could deny the request.

Pack responded that the council’s focus should be on the conditional use. If the council determined that there may be adverse impacts to the community in issuing the permit, then it could require mitigation through conditions on the permit, he said.

“It would be your job as a council to come up with reasonable conditions,” Pack said. “Are there ways that we can condition this use to eliminate or mitigate those impacts? If so, then this use can go forward. If not, then you have the grounds to deny it.”

Boger suggested that the item be tabled so that the city staff, including the city attorney, could recommend conditions to make the use work.

“I don’t like when a business comes to town, to have them be told all the reasons that they can’t do something,” Boger said. “I’d really like to see staff have a culture of just figuring out how we can make it work.”

Boger suggested that perhaps a time consideration be implemented as a condition. For example, customers could place an online order at noon and come back 4-5 hours later to pick up the order.
“If there was an actual time stipulation, that might resolve the concern,” Boger said. “Because most of the drunks are not going to wait for five hours to get some more liquor.”

Boger made a motion to table the item to allow such negotiations. The motion was accepted with a 4-1 vote with Karen Fielding being the lone dissenting vote.

Acting City Manager
In a divided vote, the council approved the ratification of Martine Green as Acting City Manager.

Mesquite Mayor Al Litman proposed the appointment due to the recent unexpected resignation of former City Manager Peter Jankowski. Litman explained that this would be temporary during the search process for a qualified person to fill the position, which is already underway.

Green has been tapped before in similar circumstances to fill the position when former City Manager Andy Barton fell ill and was no longer able to manage the city.

Most council members expressed support for the action. But some expressed concern about Green’s ability to manage the personnel and staffing issues in the city.

“I think Martine is a fabulous person,” said council member Karen Fielding. “But is she qualified to be our acting city manager? I would say no.”

Fielding said that she had spoken to employees and department heads in the city who were concerned about her leadership ability.

“I’d be concerned about her being a leader without any followers,” Fielding said.

Wursten said he had had similar discussions with department heads who had expressed concerns to him.

“There is no doubt that they all feel comfortable with Martine handling the day-to-day operations,” he said. “But it is the department head management, and the personnel management that is the problem. There was some issues before along those lines, according to them.”

Wursten wondered whether the council could just approve Green for day-to-day management and allow the department heads autonomy to run their own departments. Pack responded that such a concept was not included anywhere in the city charter.

Boger said that the idea of restricting an acting city manager in this way would be “ridiculous.”
“What you are saying is that in this interim period, you want to neuter the city manager position and allow every department head to do whatever they want!” Boger said.

“The city needs to move forward; we really should have already done this,” he added. “I would implore Mr. Litman to call a special meeting every five days if this doesn’t go through and keep putting the same thing on until the rest of the people on council want to do their jobs.”

Gallo made the motion to ratify Green as acting city manager. The motion passed with a 3-2 vote with Fielding and Wursten being the opposing votes.