Few things are more scary than out-of-control development in Washoe.  The latest is the proposed change to zoning in the Zolezzi/Lenz area to allow higher density housing.  There is a neighborhood meeting scheduled for Thursday, 11/2, at 6PM at the Lenz elementary school.  Attend to fight the increased housing density in our area. Zolezzi_School.

We have begun to meet with experienced principals to discuss our strategy going forward.  The priority is to prepare for the 2018 election.  Our present challenge is to find a candidate with high ethical standards who could defeat our Commissioner; Robert Lucey.  Given the political demographic, we’re most likely to win with a Republican candidate who will need to defeat Lucey in the primary.  But, given the national political climate, we may see a higher than normal turnout by the Democrats.

I was pleased to see the Reno Gazette Journal publish my One View piece yesterday.  I was disappointed that the statements the commissioners made to me were edited out.  The commissioners themselves really made my argument.  The editor told me that they did not want to publish them since they did not corroborate them.  Links below are for both the published (edited) version and for the submitted (original) version.

Published in RGJ 10/30/17: RGJ_103017

Submitted 10/21/17: One-View_SCW_102117

I’ve seen no activity on the Ascente property in the last few weeks.  The tracked drill is still sitting on its transport truck at the end of Fawn Lane.

We have decided to refund the GOFUNDME account that was set up to pay for a lawyer to  support a petition for judicial review of the denial of our appeal.  Those of you that contributed should see an e-mail from GOFUNDME indicating the refund.  As it turned out, we were unable to get a local lawyer to take the case, and it was quite unlikely that we would have prevailed despite the derelict action by the County Commissioners.  We will soon be seeking funds to support the WRAP PAC looking to effect the 2018 county elections.  But, this is substantially different from the intent of the GOFUNDME account, and we were not comfortable simply applying the funds to the alternate cause.  Thanks to Ryan for his efforts to set up the account initially and to get the refunds distributed.

The Board of Adjustment denied the request by Gail Willey to move his wholesale rock operation from South Meadows area to Pleasant Valley.  By 4-1, they approved the staff recommendation to allow the nursery portion to move, but this was unacceptable to Willey.  My inference, is that the sole “no” vote was to deny the move of the nursery too.  If so, it’s more of a “hell no” vote.  The staff made the argument that the rural, bucolic area would be harmed by the rock operation as well as the scenic 395 corridor.  How come those arguments were dismissed for our area?  I suspect the reason is that there is a lot more money involved with Ascente.  In some sense, we should have expected the Board’s decision regarding Willey: it was consistent with the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners decisions.

The Ascente effort is moving ahead with trenching to find earthquake faults and drilling to determine the soil depth and rock composition as they prepare to grade the lots.  LINK.

I’ve seen almost no articles, letters, or opinion pieces in the Reno Gazette Journal about development for the past couple of weeks.  I heard they lost their letters editor.  I have to wonder if the paper has decided to limit the criticism of development.

And, development we’ve got!  Take a look at the list of 103 development projects in the County that are being built or approved to be built.  LINK.  Pages 1-3 list the developments as of April while page 4 shows where they are on the map.

The Board of Adjustment meeting today will start at 1:30, but the discussion of the Willey industrial rock operation will not start before 3:30.  I should have noted this in the original blog post.  Steve

It’s another developer-abuse problem: having lost his request for a zoning change to the Planning Commission and his appeal to the County Commission, Gail Willey is seeking a special use permit to store and distribute landscaping rock from the Pleasant Steamboat Valley neighborhood.  If you can, please come to the Board of Adjustment meeting tomorrow to stand with our nearby communities in opposing this abuse.

Link to article

Details: Thursday, 10/5, 1:30 PM, County Bldg-A, Council Chambers

The corruption that allowed Ascente is affecting communities all over the county.  We need to stand with other communities, if we are going to stop this wanton destruction in pursuit of profit.