City Center Project

A Joint Operating Agreement is currently under review between the Carson City Library, the Northern Nevada Development Authority, and Adams Hub, to create and manage a “Business Retention and Expansion” program.

At the Board of Supervisor’s meeting on Aug. 1, a presentation was held to discuss a possible joint contract between the three entities, for the creation of a Business Retention and Expansion program, which would be funded by the Hop and Mae Adams Foundation.

Rational Carsonites carefully deploy their finite personal capital for maximum value and tangible results. Conversely, our city's officials serially ignore the value proposition, favoring redundant, feel-good projects lacking objective analysis, justification and worthwhile benefits. Core civic services and infrastructure maintenance suffer.

The recent initiative to raise sales taxes, projected to saddle taxpayers with $15 million of additional long-term debt, is largely ($13 million) targeted for more indoor basketball courts and arterial street beautification projects.

Carson Now has removed this letter due to several questions about its authenticity and that Mr. Javanovich doesn't appear to have ever been a resident of Carson City. Carson Now has asked Mr. Javanovich a second time for authenticity of the letter in which we have not had a reply. If Mr. Javanovich steps forward with legal documents saying who he is, including a Nevada driver's license or state ID card, we will put the letter back online.

Carson City voters soundly rejected a proposed quarter cent sales tax to support a downtown library and elected two new faces to the Board of Supervisors.
In a razor-thin decision of just 25 votes, Carson City cast its decision and picked Jim Shirk over incumbent Molly Walt for the Ward 4 seat. Shirk pulled in 10,335 votes, getting 50.06 percent of the vote to Walt's 10,310 votes or 49.94 percent of the vote.

I attended a League of Women Voters' meeting last week ( October 16th). I may be have been dreaming, but people were mostly civil to each other. It was a refreshing change from so many discussions I've observed over the past two years. . . mostly angry shouting matches. Marilee Swirczek wrote recently about the "shout-out" at WNC which turned unruly when some opponents of the City Center Project started pushing and shoving an invited guest. I'm glad I wasn't there.

A previous letter (by Janice Ayers) has presented no new arguments FOR the KDC project, and failed to address the arguments made by people such as I and others who are against it. Instead, she engages in a childish ad hominem attack. That is exactly what I got in response to my first letter on this topic.

Letter to the editor:
It was with great sadness that I read the Nevada Appeal report (Oct.6,) “Political Speech Leads to Pushing at Forum”. For many months I’ve tolerated mean, thoughtless tirades by a handful of people opposed to positive change in our capital city community. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, however negative and uninformed it might be.

Local politics gets into full swing when the Carson City Chamber of Commerce will host its Soup's On Supervisor Candidate Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 23. Featured at the luncheon will be the contestants for the Carson City Supervisor Ward 2 race, Brad Bonkowski and Dennis Johnson and Ward 4 contestants incumbent Molly Walt and Jim Shirk. Questions will be fielded from the audience.

The forum will be at Gold Dust West, 2171 U.S. Highway 50 East in Carson City. The cost is $15 per person in advance and $20 at the door. RSVP by Oct. 19. Call (775) 882-1565. See the flier below.

Two candidate forums will take place in Carson City next week. Hosted by the League of Women Voters, the first is at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 17 at the Carson City Community Center. The topics are Question 1, the proposed City Center project for downtown Carson City. Following the pros and cons discussion of Question 1 there will be a Board of Supervisors candidate presentation for the two seats.

Carson City School Board Trustee Stacie Wilke-McChulloch has announced her endorsement of Brad Bonkowski for Supervisor Ward 2. Wilke-McChulloch ran in that race’s primary election, coming in third with 24 percent of the vote. Wilke-McChulloch says she is endorsing Bonkowski because he is the most open minded and approachable candidate.

A reader yesterday submitted the following letter dealing with the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, and the citizen's petition to put the issue on the ballot:

Carson Supervisors Poised to Lose Credibility. . .Again

This Thursday Carson's supervisors are poised to undermine the community's clear desire for finite boundaries on the downtown library complex project.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors will be discussing on Thursday an amendment to the previous redevelopment incentive loan package offered to Micheal Hohl Motors to keep the company's three dealerships in the county.

The company has already received $2.4 million in redevelopment funds that was used to help build the new Honda and Subaru dealerships on South Carson Street, and is preparing to take out the remaining $2.4 million for remodeling of the GM dealership.

One of the biggest, once-in-a-lifetime thrills this writer experienced was first-time voting eligibility in local, state and national elections. What a privilege to have my official opinion added in to the larger community, with an impact on public decisions going forward. Much can be learned from the morning-after election results, which chronicle where we are as a community at a given moment. . .a snapshot of what's on people's collective minds, or at least those who choose to exercise their voting rights.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors yesterday approved wording for ballot question seeking a sales tax increase to fund the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

See the live Tweets of the meeting here.

Supervisors agreed to two important changes to the original wording released last week.

Since posting the City Center aka Nugget Project ballot question on Friday, I've had several calls about why the question is advisory.

After all, according to Nevada Revised Statutes 377A.030, the Carson City Board of Supervisors must seek a majority vote of the people to implement the quarter cent sales tax to fund the project. So why is it advisory?

Did you know that our relatively small community has 26 libraries which are not managed, operated or funded in an integrated way?

Each of the 22 private and public schools has its own library. Then there are four public libraries (Western Nevada College, city, State Library and Archives, State Law Library). Two of these libraries (State Library and Archives and the State Law Library) are woefully underutilized.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors this afternoon voted to form a committee whose job it will be to come up with the wording for a ballot question asking voters to approve of the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

Because the previous plan for funding the project proved unworkable, the ballot question would ask voters to approve a quarter cent sales tax increase to fund it instead.

Last week it was revealed that the Carson City Board of Supervisors would be considering putting a question on the ballot to approve a quarter-cent sales tax to fund a downsized $28 million City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors is meeting this morning at 8:30. You can watch the live video here, and the agenda is here. The Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, will be discussed during the afternoon session beginning at 2 p.m.

I support reasonable efforts to redevelop the downtown area or our city, and feel that it can be done with just a little help from the city/taxpayers.

But the present concept is excessive, not well considered and unnecessary. Further, consideration of increasing property taxes to fund this effort is irresponsible. Folks in this town are having a difficult time making ends meet.

There is absolutely no justification for building a new library. The present library is more than sufficient for our needs.

It started off with a grand $90 million vision. Then it shrank to $50 million. Now, the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, looks like it got downsized again, this time to $28 million.

According to the agenda for the May 17 Board of Supervisors meeting, the board will consider directing City Manager Larry Werner to draft a ballot question asking voters to approve a quarter cent sales tax increase to finance the $28 million project.

What got cut? Mainly the parking garage.

Why has the latest version of the City Center project been crafted outside of public view?

The city's recent announcement states the project is now $28 million (excluding interest expense), replacing the $49 million (excluding interest) proposed in September 2011 primarily because the multi-level parking garage has been removed.

The public doesn't know who came up with this abrupt change. However, we do know there were no public meetings about this project shift and the Nugget/City Center Advisory Committee hasn't met since August 2011.

In today's economically stressed environment, it would be quite the political feat to enact any kind of tax increase.

But the backers of the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, are going to have to hope they can pull off a miracle two-fer.

The Carson City Library Board of Trustees voted tonight to make a recommendation to the Carson City Board of Supervisors that the City Center Project be put on the ballot in November.

The board voted unanimously to forward the recommendation without a specific funding request, leaving that to the supervisors. Earlier this week, Supervisor Shelly Aldean said they are looking at a possible quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund the City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors will hear from the city's finance director Nick Providenti tomorrow on the budget outlook for the next fiscal year, and that outlook will include a call for higher property taxes.

In an interview on Tuesday, Providenti said the property tax rate should be raised from $3.18 to $3.66, which is the limit under current state law. (This rate is for those homes on the west side that are part of the Sierra Forest Fire Protection District. The rest of the city pays 10 cents less.)

There are enough nuggets buried inside the Nevada Appeal's follow-up story today on the Carson City Center Project — aka Nugget Project — to keep heads in this town spinning for a week.

For the past few weeks, we've been subjected to dueling columns on the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

First you had the side that wants the question put on the ballot in November via a petition. Then, you had the project supporters who tried to push back against this effort, insisting that our elected officials should handle it.

I think you can now officially score this a win for the ballot petition.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

That's the basis of the argument being put forward by some of the more vocal supporters of the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, as they try to fight back the attempt to put the issue on the November ballot.

They would be wise to follow their own advice.

Dennis Johnson filed this afternoon as a candidate for Carson City Supervisor Ward 2, joining Brad Bonkowski and Maurice White in a battle to replace current Supervisor Shelly Aldean, who decided not to run after 10 years on the board. Liz Teixeira has also declared that she plans to run.

Johnson is one of the main forces behind the Nugget Project petition effort to put the question of whether to go forward with the City Center Project up for a public vote.

There are also two candidates who have filed so far for the three Carson City School Board seat up for election this year. Steve Reynolds has filed for reelection in District 5, and Joe Cacioppo, Jr. is running for the District 7 seat held now by Joanna Wilson, who is termed out. No one has declared yet for the District 2 seat currently held by James Lemaire.

Brad Bonkowski has announced that he plans to run for Carson City Supervisor Ward 2.

Bonkowski is the third candidate to announce a run for the seat being vacated by Shelly Aldean, who decided not to run for reelection after serving on the board of 10 years. Liz Teixeira and Maurice White have also announced their intentions to run for the seat.

Bonkowski released the following statement: