 |
 |
 |
||
|
||||
|
February 24, 2006
Time for voters to decide RPC membership
Elections make people in high places think and act like a 12-year-old who wants to be friends with everybody. A classic example of this has occurred on the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission where a couple of commissioners have an eye on higher office - and who could blame them? Members of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission have an incredibly difficult job and they don't make a dime. They work for free and at the pleasure of the Nye County Board of Commissioners, which created the RPC nearly a decade ago. The goal wasn't to address serious planning issues in a town that was growing at an absurd rate - at the time - of 15 percent annually. The commission's objective was to create another level of bureaucracy that would serve as a buffer from members of the public, as well as developers, when it was time to implement the most radical changes in Pahrump history. I know. I was there at the press table when the RPC held its inaugural meeting at the Bob Ruud Community Center on a hot Wednesday night in July 1996. The planning commission's first order of business was to put an immediate end to the decades-long practice whereby "land developers" circumvented state subdivision laws. They did this by subsequent parceling. In Nevada, any division of land that creates a maximum of four lots is considered parceling; any division of land that creates five or more lots is deemed a subdivision - a move that creates a much more significant burden on the landholder to put in place certain improvements on and off site. Little things like paved streets with curb and gutter, water and sewer for lots under an acre in size and streetlights would be a few examples of what is required of subdivisions. A few of today's most revered citizens followed the law; most didn't. Many people with large tracts of land would apply for a parcel map, divide it in fours, take each of those fours and divide them into fours and so on and so on. The most noticeable detriment to come out of this wink-and-a-nod killing in the real estate market was the creation of more than 500 miles of gravel and dirt roads. Uncle Sam came knocking wanting to know why there was so much dust in the wind. The battle was engaged, but the war began about a quarter of a century earlier. Local government had co-opted Pahrump's future in the early 1970s when officials set precedent with Preferred Equities Corporation, a company with a dual reputation to longtime Pahrump residents. PEC raped the valley and just when we needed them the most they bailed. At the same time, if not for PEC's wildly under-whelming approach to building a community called Calvada, Pahrump might never have found its way onto the proverbial map. The complex planning problems faced by today's leaders at the town and county level are the direct result, in most cases, of the sins of past leaders, most who are dead and at peace. We will leave them in that state because what's done is done; now we need to fix what's wrong. That won't happen until voters are given the opportunity to elect planning commissioners. Nothing against any individual planner - or anyone who works at the planning office - but the public deserves more accountability from this incredibly important department. As individuals I'm a fan of most every planning commissioner I know and I hold no ill will, but it is not the sum of the parts that tweak me, it is the whole. One ballot question this newspaper would gladly endorse would be the election of planning commissioners. We still wouldn't have to pay them anything - the town board is all volunteers, so on second thought we might want to provide a stipend - but they would be more answerable to the people of Pahrump and the people would have a better understanding of what each candidate brings to the table. Right now the only criteria is a résumé. We need engineers, professors, former military officers and NCOs and other people with intellect and common sense. We need contractors - we already have a good one in Garry Warner - and we need one person with ties to the real estate community. But we need only one. Most of all, we need aggressive planners who have worked elsewhere in the Southwest. Something as important as the future of this valley can't be left in the hands of a few - all of us should play a role in how the story of Pahrump is written. Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com. |
|
