CONGRATULATIONS TO MARNEY MARTINEZ THE NEWLY APPOINTED COUNTY RECORDER!

COUNTY I.T SYSTEMS WERE TESTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FOR VULNERABILITIES AND PASSED EXCEPT FOR ONE SERVER WHICH WAS FIXED IMMEDIATELY

THANKS TO JEFF WOOD AND THE 20+ VC RESIDENTS WHO CLEANED UP THE TOWN AFTER STREET VIBRATIONS

COUNTY MANAGER AUSTIN OSBORN WILL FINALLY BE DOING SOME ACTUAL ANALYSIS ON CAPITAL PROJECTS SPENDING TO SEE IF THERE IS EQUITABLE DISPERSION OF COUNTY FUNDS BETWEEN THE COMMUNITIES

By

Nicole Barde

You can find the agenda packet HERE, County Manager Austin Osborn’s summary HERE, Commissioner Carmona’s summary HERE when it is posted and the recording HERE

This was a short and fairly procedural meeting. The key points are covered in Austin’s summary.

Under staff updates, Sheriff Antinoro reported that Street Vibrations went pretty smoothly in town and that there was one traffic fatality on the grade.

I.T Manager James Dean reported that the security measures that they have been taking to “firewall” the County’s systems are ahead of the soon to be required by NRS standards. He thanked County Clerk Vanessa Stephens for pointing him to the FREE “penetration testing” service conducted by the Department of Homeland Security. This means that they basically attacked our servers to find the vulnerabilities…they found one and it was fixed immediately.

Deny Dotson, VCTC Executive Director, said that Street Vibrations were a success. He commended History Center Manager Jeff Wood for marshaling the community to clean up after the event. He also noted that Christmas on the Comstock activities are underway and that there will be three weekends full of activities in December.

Cherie Nevin, Community Relations Manager, reminded people of the Miners statue unveiling set for October 25 in Miners Park.

Deputy D.A. Loomis informed the Commission of an Open Meeting Law complaint that has been filed against the Commission.

SIDENOTE-Jeeez….I filed that complaint months ago when Commission Chair Marshall McBride shut down my questions and comments about the budget…during the comments section of the agenda. He then went on to allow others to comment….knowing the States position on anything Storey…they will ignore this as they do everything else, including criminal complaints, hoping that the stink won’t stick to them.

But I digress…….

County Manager Austin Osborn said that planning for the countywide strategic plan session is ongoing. He also said that he is doing an analysis of the capital improvement plan to look to see if it is equitable between the communities, looking at the Return On Investment and determining the right measures for success.

SIDENOTE– Well FINALLY. I have been asking for this type of analysis as far back as 2014!

First of all, no one has seen the Capital Improvement Plan OR the Infrastructure Plan …this was one of the questions I was asking when I was shut down by Marshall in the budget meeting months ago. The Infrastructure Plan has a different revenue stream from the Capital Plan…it uses other public state funds and has specific requirements per NRS as to what you can spend it on. The $1 million dollar Court House parking lot was on the infrastructure plan at the time.

Secondly, I did a version of this analysis in 2014 HERE on my own to look at the road spending in each community as compared to the taxes collected from each community to do a broad ROI. There WERE differences.

The only information I could get access to at the time was the road expenses and tax revenues. Since Austin will have greater access I look forward to a more comprehensive analysis.

I also did a comparison of budget spending from 2012 to 2015 HERE….. again I had limited access to information…I hope that Austin also does this type of report so that we can see how much more work the county has taken on and how much more efficient the county has become with the significant additions to county overhead…..

In the private sector there are many indicators which show this type of efficiency…I’m sure many apply to us here in the richest place on earth.

 

Back to our program…

The rest of the meeting was consumed by the SUP for solar in Mark Twain and the zone map and road abandonment requests having to do with the treatment plant in Gold Hill.