Potholes and Politics
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Mon, 11/13/2023 - 8:30am
It's no secret that the streets in Carson City need are in dire need of maintenance. It's been a longstanding issue for decades without any real solutions. Various politicians have floated ideas ranging from waiting for the federal government to provide funds to imposing new taxes. The most recent effort is of the latter.
The Regional Transportation Commission meeting held on November 8th consisted of proposing a “new city-wide general improvement district (GID)” which will impose upon citizens of Carson City a “NEW TAX”.
The mayor (Bagwell) and her four supervisors have been sitting absent-mindedly on this $21,000,000 deficit for street repair and maintenance for years. Never taking any action whatsoever! Now they want to tax you!
Using the tried and true strategy employed for other controversial topics, the city hosted two public meetings regarding street repair and maintenance. Roughly 119 people from our population of 58,883, attended. Most likely more citizens would have attended if they had known about it. Of those 119 attending, 33 responded to a survey of opinions on which tax mechanism should be employed. Will their answers dictate the direction the city will take? More than likely, the answer is "yes"; however, there is no proof that individuals who did the survey actually live in Carson City.
The scheme divides Carson City into five districts for street repair/maintenance funding, effectively absolving our five elected Supervisors from any direct responsibility of overseeing anything to do with streets and expenditure of your tax dollars to maintain them. Advocacy (or the lack of it) for maintenance of your street, would now fall to an unelected (and unaccountable) member of the city staff based on internal policy. Your elected representative is now off the hook and unaccountable to you.
Moreover, the proposed new tax for street repair and maintenance could possibly be a “property tax” imposed upon all property owners. Regardless if you don't drive, if you own one car or a dozen, or the distance you drive. We continually promote housing developments but allow developers to dodge the financial impact these developments bring to our city. There is no "impact fee" for street maintenance either for during construction or when the project is complete. Forget about the additional impact on police, fire, medical, schools, etc. "Build it and they will come" certainly applies but only you will pay the tax for it. Unlike your water and sewer bill which charges you based on your consumption, the proposed taxes are blind to your actual use or the cause of the increased use.
All this while there's been little effort to restrain or re-allocate city tax revenues. Our city government officials will have you believe that despite revenue of over $238 MILLION dollars a year, we can't figure out how to fix our streets without a new tax. Just ignore the cost of the annual growth in the size and cost our city government, the annual increase in revenue from your property taxes, and the city's share of internet sales and marijuana taxes that didn't exist 10 years ago. Allegedly, we have two experienced budget people at the very top of our city government who have yet to tell us they have scrutinized our budget top to bottom and their really isn't any money to fix our streets. Not one cent? Really? Hard to believe.
Over the past decade we have experienced unparalleled growth in both residential and commercial activity. Our expanding health care industry (a significant percentage of which commute), our incessant high density housing projects, and changing demographics demand that we do something more than talk about our streets. But forcing you to bear the cost of this, without fixing our spending is literally throwing good money after bad.
Contact your elected officials.
Mayor
Lori Bagwell (775) 283-7144
Board of Supervisors
Stacey Giomi Ward 1 (775) 283-7582
Maurice White Ward 2 (775) 283-7934
Curtis Horton Ward 3 (775) 283-7073
Lisa Schuette Ward 4 (775) 283-7933
