By Nicole Barde
The agenda for this meeting is HERE and County Manager Pat Whitten’s summary of this meeting is HERE.
This was a fairly straightforward meeting and went quickly. The Approval for the February 2, 2016 minutes were continued until the next meeting and the consent agenda passed without other exceptions.
The staff updates are pretty much covered in Pat Whitten’s summary with the following exceptions:
-Comptroller Hugh Gallagher reported that the county is doing an audit of its communications system and physical phone lines. Apparently they are getting charged for lines that no longer exist and the current communications system needs to be brought into the 21st century to increase efficiency and cost savings. Hugh also reported that the budget process has begun and he’s looking at the staffing levels as well as a cost allocation process for internal county services.
-Commissioner Jack McGuffey asked for an update on the V & T Commission response to the County’s request for financials. Hugh said that there has been no response and that he may need the County Commissioners to make a call to help expedite the request. Pat Whitten stated that we were still withholding funds from the V&T Commission.
-Pat Whitten announced that despite a great deal of effort and improvement the Peace Officers Museum will not be reopening this year. The visitation numbers and contributions are not enough for it to be financially viable. No word on what will happen to the exhibits or that space. He also noted that the county is aware that there is a problem with the Verizon 911 cell service in Lockwood and are looking into it.
Board comments included the following:
-Jack McGuffey commented on the sad loss of Justice Antonin Scalia
-Commissioner Lance Gilman commented that he was impressed with the state and federal representation at Saturdays Republican Lincoln Lunch meeting and that the Lacy J Dalton Saturday evening event at the Silverland was also very good. He announced that TRI would be hosting a Wild Horse Conference, at the request of Tesla and Switch, on March 18th. More to come on this meeting. Lance also announced that Roger Norman would be opening up the Pennington Mansion in Reno for a fundraiser for Jim Wheeler on March 2nd.
-Commission Chair Marshall McBride commented on the passing of Brandi Lee, a 40 year Comstock resident. He also announced that he, Pat Whitten and Jack McGuffey would be leaving for Washington DC on Friday for the NACO conference.
The Delta Saloon received approval for both a cabaret and off-sale liquor license addendums.
During Public Comment Larry Prater, Treasurer of the Storey County Democratic Party, had a statement read into the record in response to Mark Phillips’ comment at the last meeting that the Party isn’t listed anywhere as an organization. Among other things his statement stressed that the Storey County Democratic Party was listed with the Secretary of State’s Office.
A WORD ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS:
I attended the Caucus on Saturday at the VC Middle School. I’ve read a couple of stories about how some of the other Nevada caucuses went and the stories about possible fraud in the voting and “viability” part of the process. That’s hard to hear but I can see how it can happen.
I didn’t see any of that in our caucus. The organizers had the gym all set up and the precinct captains ran the meetings well. What I did see was a mess as far as the voter lists were concerned. Larry Prater was alone when he started to check people in then Dawn Miller and I pitched in to help out. It was a confusing check-in process since there were people who had “pre-registered” and expected it to be like the TSA speed line. It was confusing for us since the lists were out of sequence, not fully alphabetized, missing names of people who were longtime residents , missing names of people who had changed party affiliation or address and generally difficult to deal with. It was difficult for the attendees since the check in process was a bit disorganized and slow.
I didn’t see anyone get upset with us as we struggled to get them checked in. They could see what we were dealing with and I hope they understood. In the precinct meetings themselves the groups were small, and people knew their neighbors so with the exception of losing track of the count once we were able to finish pretty quickly and without incident. The biggest issue I saw once we got into our groups was that the noise from all of the groups talking at once was a distraction and made it difficult to conduct business.
All in all our caucus seemed to go well…….we’ll have to see how the paperwork part (lists and cards) works out once it’s all in. For my part…I’d rather have a primary.