We were very frustrated by the unanimous vote by the Board of County Commissioners to deny our appeal. Our District-2 Commissioner, Bob Lucey, recused himself since his campaign manager had worked for Ascente. The vice-chairman, Marsha Berkbigler, chaired the meeting even though she had taken contributions from Ascente investors for her last campaign. Commissioner Kitty Jung explained to the public that taking campaign contributions from an applicant does not disqualify a commissioner from voting on that applicant’s project. Really?! We felt betrayed: our concerns and arguments were apparently ignored.
We will re-group to consider what is next. We are at a great disadvantage to stop the project now, but there are legal actions we can pursue.
What is not in doubt, is that we will be politically active in the coming year to unseat our commissioner (Lucey). He is apparently the ring leader for the pro-developer faction. We will also consider what we can do to replace commissioners Jung and Herman who are also up for re-election in 2018 with candidates who will at least enforce the existing codes and safety requirements.
Stay tuned …
Washoe Residents for Appropriate Planning 
Keep us posted on any news & anything we can do to help.
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Herman had zero input the entire meeting. It was hard to say what she was even doing there. Or if she even knew she was there
Berkbigler spent a good portion of the meeting yapping to anybody she could on her left, right and otherwise, while people were presenting. She obviously had little interest in anything said. If I were presenting I would have stopped talking until she paid attention…but of course they have you on the whopping 3 minute timer. If you ever felt like your elected officials are not listening to you…she is that. If one thing described her…it was ‘how fast can we get out of here’.
Jung…what a piece of that work that one is. Not sure what she was looking down at about 75% of the time. Maybe her phone, maybe a crossword puzzle…who knows…but another one with no interest.
Hartung…at least he seemed interested, spent time on Fawn Lane, asked a lot of good questions and had good points.
And Lucey…at least he rescued himself….but what a slimeball.
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Anonymous Tip: The next shoe to drop will be when the developer “discovers” that the Forest Service won’t give them an access easement to extend Thomas Creek Rd. to the south because they already have two other access points.
Result: Developer will propose and County staff will support (with some feigned hand-wringing) widening and signalizing Fawn Lane within the existing 66 foot right-of-way to accommodate the remaining 375 homes that they are entitled to build under the Matera Ridge zoning.
Commissioner X, Y or Z will lift high the banner of the housing shortage and proclaim the need to protect the County from a “taking” lawsuit as they vote “Yes” to the 600 home build-out from the soon to be widened (and signalized at SR-431) Fawn Lane.
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