Column: Deep Thoughts, Cheap Shots and Bonbons

Deep Thoughts, Cheap Shots and Bonbons. “It ain’t over till it’s over” — Yogi Berra

From the September 17th Board of Supervisors meeting
Agenda item
#21C Purchasing and Contracts
To approve Purchase Order # 2016-8807 for the purchase of roofing supplies from Garland/DBS, Inc., for a total amount of $93,091.07 with a 10% contingency amount of $9,309.11 for a total not to exceed amount of $102,400.18 to be funded from Capital Projects. Late Material included.

The reason for discussing this particular agenda item is the mention of Late Material - hardly ever does city staff provide late material. Why would late material be provided? Two reasons:
Staff had additional pertinent information about the contract, product, or legal advice.
Board member(s) or a citizen asked a question, made an inquiry or a request that resulted in additional information being provided.

Basically, since serving on the Carson City Board of Supervisor’s for the past 2 ½ years receiving additional late material has happened about as many times as man has stepped foot on the moon.

#22 Information Technology
To approve an extension of the contract between Carson City and the Brewery Arts Center (BAC) to provide public, educational and government access programming for the period of October 1 through December 31, 2015, as a transition period for the Carson City Information Technology Department (CCIT) to establish policies and procedures to provide these services no later than January 1, 2016.

For all intent and purposes starting next year Carson City IT Department will be filming all governmental board, commission and committee meetings. They CANNOT alter, change modify or revise any filming of any meetings. They will be providing better service at a much lower cost to you the tax payer.

What they will be doing is using software that will allow the citizens better access to review and analyze all meetings. This software will finally bring Carson City into the 21st century.

#23B Discussion and possible action to determine if Staff should provide all Board members with information provided to one member.

Here is the motion and action taken by the Board.
I move to direct the City Manager to provide to all Board Members only that information and/or material that substantially impacts the published agenda.

It passed with a 4 to 1 vote:
Yea: Crowell, Abowd, Bonkowski, and Bagwell. Nay: Shirk

Background on agenda items: Hardly ever, is an agenda item presented to the Board of Supervisors that came from another source other than city staff. The vast majority of all agenda items presented by city staff are for the Boards approval to spend your tax dollars.

By so granting to the City Manager this power, as the sole authority to determine what will or will not substantially impact all future agenda items, is completely wrong. Granting this extraordinary power to one individual goes against the principle of separation of governmental powers. The foundation of government is that fairness must exist. Communication is the first step towards fairness which then leads to an open and transparent government. Any and all information regarding an agenda item that is provided to one Board member should be provided to all Board members, regardless of who may have asked a question, made an inquiry or request.

Remember, agenda items are all about spending your tax dollars and with the passage of this motion it singularly empowers the City Manager to control all communications that could significantly impact how a Board member may or may not vote which could depend on the information that is provided or not provided equally among all Board members.

Correction Notice
In a previous newsletter I misquoted actions taken by the Utility Financial Oversight Committee – to clarify they have always recommend/voted for a five year phase in hookup fees for commercial rate increases.

A newspaper article on September 20, 2015 stated:
Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell was honored on Sept. 15th by the Nevada Chapter of the American Planning Association with the DeBoer Award for Distinguished Leadership by an Elected Official, for his role in championing the Carson City Downtown Urban Design Streetscape Project.

Brief History of Streetscape Project
This concept had first been brought forward by Supervisor Abowd and Supervisor Bonkonski on August 15, 2013, at the Board of Supervisors meeting as Agenda item #17, which reads as follows:

For Possible Action: Presentation by Downtown 20/20 on the Downtown Carson City Revitalization Plan consisting of three major components - Business Activity; Special Events and Promotions; and Beautification, Circulation and Parking.

Summary: In April 2013, the Downtown 20/20, a group of businesses and citizens, appeared before the Board of Supervisors to advocate for removal of the fences that lined Carson Street in downtown and restriping of the street that would have eliminated one lane going each way and added parallel parking. At the time, the Board directed staff to remove the fences and asked the Downtown 20/20 to develop a revitalization plan that addresses other issues related to components of a successful downtown, not just the addition of on-street parking.

Speaking of Narrowing Carson Street
Back in 2012 the people behind the petition effort to force the Carson City Center aka Nugget Project on the ballot submitted 4,559 signatures to the Carson City Clerk-Recorder's office. They only were required to have 2,935 signatures verified by the clerk to qualify the petition.

I have repeatedly stated that the present day project (narrowing Carson Street) is a “GO” there are no: if’s, and’s, or but’s. It’s going to happen.

On the other hand yes there might be an exception to this, and that is, if someone were to: 1) file for a petition with the Clerk-Recorder; 2) the Secretary of State approves the petition; and 3) obtains the required signatures on the petition. How might that occur, one must look at the 2014 General Election stats which are:

Election day turnout 6,021
Early turnout 8,459
Absentee turnout 1,239
_________________________
Total 15,719

Of the 15,719 registered voters who voted in the 2014 General Election, the ballpark figure of 10% of that number or 1,572 (+/-) signatures would be needed. All signatures would need to be validated by the Clerk-Recorder to make the petition lawful and placed on the 2016 ballot. This would allow citizens to vote YES or NO to the narrowing of Carson Street. There might be some legal hurdles as no one can predict how the City or the Board may counter any such petition.

Animal Shelter
The shelter and Carson City were given 30 days by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to rid the Carson City facility of the rodents and deal with asbestos. Presently the dog kennels at Carson City’s animal shelter were closed for perhaps a month. Dogs are now being transported to other locations temporarily while these problems get resolved.

The Nevada Human Society under a contract with Carson City government has operated the shelter and run animal services since last October. It recently learned that CEO Kevin Ryan with NHS had been fired for “serious traffic violations.” Will this have any effect on how our shelter is run? I would hope the NHS would appear before the Board and give some reassurances that it will not.

Three questions about the animal shelter.
1. The contract for the construction of the new animal shelter has recently been awarded; one might wonder why then reopen this aging structure?
2. The money they (NHS) has pledged for the new Animal Shelter will only be used for equipping the building with furniture and other office accessories. Should their contract with Carson City become invalid, annulled or cancelled what will become of these furnishings?
3. The main focus of Carson City Health and Human Resources should be on Health of our community. Regardless if it’s stated in: City Ordinances, NRS, Charter or any other document, that this department will oversee the operation of the Animal Shelter any reasonable person would ask why?

Going back to Yogi Berra. This edition of Deep Thoughts, Cheap Shots and Bonbons - is over.

— Jim Shirk is a Carson City Supervisor for Ward 4. He can be reached at (775) 720-5761 or by email, ILoveCarsonCity@yahoo.com.