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Last Friday afternoon at the Nevada Legislature, a lawmaker showed me a copy of the Sparks Tribune. There on the front page were black block headlines more suitable for, say, an attack on Pearl Harbor:

Nevada's festival city:

Sparks or Pahrump?

For those who missed last Friday's Pahrump Valley Times, Pahrump and the Pahrump Chamber of Commerce in July 2007 hired a Seattle firm, Destination Development, to develop a new brand and tourism identity for Pahrump. Sparks did the same thing with Destination Development in the Spring of 2008. Pahrump paid $25,000, Sparks $114,000 or $126,000, depending on who's telling it.

After the company asked for ideas from locals, a Pahrump tourism official reportedly suggested to the Seattle firm that making the town a festival Mecca might be a good idea, with a special event scheduled perhaps once a month.

At some point, the company seemed to lose interest in Pahrump. A chamber official says calls to DD were not returned, the company says Pahrump representatives were "uncooperative," according to the Tribune. Whatever, Pahrump went ahead with its own promotional plans to become a "Valley of Festivals."

Then the Seattle firm turned in its branding plan for Sparks, which proposed making that community into "Nevada's Festival City."

The Pahrump Chamber shot off a letter to Sparks: "It is our contention that we paid $25,000 to Destination Development and Destination Development then sold out the idea to you [the City of Sparks] for $114,000." There was a reference to a lawsuit (against DD) and an injunction (against Sparks).

It should be noted that Sparks officials (not necessarily Sparks residents, who seem content with its history as the Rail City) have long struggled with their town's identity. A couple of decades ago they adopted a downtown redevelopment plan that featured a Victorian theme. This was a stretch (Victoria died before Sparks existed) but the downtown now has features like old fashioned lamp posts that are someone's idea of Victorian. At another point, the Sparks Nugget -- the largest casino in the town -- proposed renaming the town East Reno.

Downtown Sparks does have a good number of special events, AKA "festivals." This is a double edged sword. Downtown Sparks is a residential area. The special events take place on the main street ("Victorian Avenue," formerly B Street), literally one block from front porches of local families, which has become a real problem. During a special event thousands of cars pour into the neighborhoods because the city does not have the parking for special events. Residents put up signs begging people not to park in front of their homes.

Reno dropped its Cinco de Mayo celebration and Sparks picked it up. There is a Sparks farmers market every Thursday in summer, which has often featured violence and arrests (and very little farm produce), and officials are so oriented to the downtown businesses that residents have given up complaining. To tie everything together nicely the Tribune reported recently that the city lost $180,000 on 2008 "festivals," more than it spent on the study telling it to put on more festivals.

Sparks columnist Andrew Barbano noted last week, "People brighter than me at Sparks City Hall just forked over $114,000 for an out-of-state suede-shoe to come up with a new slogan for the Rail City. ... When I first came to northern Nevada in 1971, a local advertising guru told me that the way to generate big business was to fly in somebody from over the hill to impress the locals. ... The out-of-town expert further recommended hiring a special events salesperson and spending about a million dollars on 're-branding' Sparks."

What I find most striking is that, in the end, Pahrump officials rolled up their sleeves and put together their own plan. I don't know how much, if anything, it cost, but I'll bet anything it's more rooted in local realities than a plan concocted in Seattle.