Incorporation debate rages on at meeting

By MARK WAITE

VIEW STAFF WRITER

The pro-incorporation group, Pahrump Cityhood Association, said incorporation wouldn't mean increased taxes and would mean local control to plan for growth.

The anti-incorporation Informed Citizens group, said Pahrump already receives more money from Nye County than it pays in taxes.

Both sides squared off before a candidates forum at the Pahrump Community Center last Wednesday night.

"Each and every authority in this charter already exists at the county government level," Pahrump Cityhood Association member Gordon Frohman said.

Liz Kerby, a member of Informed Citizens, said incorporation proponents went with a city charter rather than a General Law form of government, which would've required obtaining one-third of the signatures of registered voters to put it on the ballot and approval from various boards. Frohman said 22 of the 23 incorporated cities in Nevada have a city charter.

Informed Citizens members said incorporation was voted down twice before. Frohman replied the valley is different than it was four or seven years ago.

"We can't put a fence across Highway 160 and stop new people and businesses from coming in just because we want the valley to be like it was when we moved here," Frohman said. "We face totally different challenges than Tonopah, Beatty, Round Mountain and the other communities of this county face."

Kerby said growth is slowing down, as evidenced by Valley Electric Association's reports and conversations with area real estate agents.

"If it's slowing down, I don't know why I'm working 12, 14 hours a day," said Frohman, the director of the Economic Development Authority of Esmeralda and Nye County. A new paint factory just opened, Frohman said, while a $2 million dot-com company opened for business in town Oct. 3.

Informed Citizens member Laura Billman said she talked to Henderson City Manager Scott Woodbury regarding incorporation. The proposed Pahrump city charter is based on Henderson's. Woodbury told her incorporation had nothing to do with that city's growth. Billman said companies like Wal-Mart and Target informed her they would only move to a community if the demographics are there.

Kerby said a misconception about incorporation is that Pahrump residents are paying more to Tonopah than they are receiving in services. Kerby said out of approximately $16 million in property taxes, Pahrump residents paid the last fiscal year, only about $6.5 million went to the county. In that year, Nye county spent $8 million to $9 million on Pahrump, she said.

"It gives the city council control of the means to generate other types of revenue," Kerby said of incorporation. "That's what this is all about."

Pahrump Cityhood Association member Charlie Gronda said most of the authority of the present town board is under the county commission. Gronda said the town has no control over roads and policing.

Billman said the present town board has the authority to do everything they would under incorporation except have a Regional Planning Commission, license pets and declare eminent domain. She said the town board should be pushed to exercise its rights under Nevada Revised Statutes.

Both sides were asked about how the city would compensate for county funding to make up for shortfalls in the Pahrump Valley Fire Rescue Service and Pahrump Medical Center.

Gronda said, since the town took over the fire rescue service 18 months ago, "I still believe it can be a self-supporting service."

"It's not the responsibility of the town board or the city council to bring a hospital to this community," Frohman said.

Pahrump Cityhood member Walt Kuver said an incorporated city government would provide more efficiency, citing a statewide ban on trailers older than 1976, which has yet to be passed by Nye County.

Pahrump property owners pay a 19 cent per $100 tax to the town, and 97 cents to Nye County, or $1.13, a total that would stay the same under incorporation, only the city would get more money, Kuver said. The statutes are clear, the city would take over the county's fixed assets and operating budget for departments the county formerly managed, he said.

Kuver added, "I feel zoning is necessary if you're growing and want to try to manage it."

Basic philosophical differences about the role of government were brought out by both sides.

"Yes this is about control, it's about getting control of our valley, ourselves, with our own elected people," Kuver said.

Kerby said government is our servant not our master. She grabbed a quote from Mark Twain, who in 1866 said, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe when the city council's in session."