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.

The Ascente preparations are moving forward.  They have been using a tracked excavator this week to cut trenches to locate earthquake faults.  Our first impression is that they are not following best practice and may not be making a good-faith effort to find the faults.  Since they fill in their trenches immediately, we can’t see what they’ve unearthed or whether the trench is deep enough to be informative.  They have also started drilling at selected locations to see how deep the loose soil and rocks are before they hit the base rock.  This will indicate how difficult it will be to excavate to level the roads and the lots and run the trenches.

We are advancing too.  We are planning a strategic meeting for the WRAP initiative.  Our PAC is now registered with the state.  We have updated our officers to include Kristin Hemlein, David Sater, and Steve Wolgast (me).  We are waiting for the IRS to assign an EIN number which is required before we can open a bank account.

There is a lot of new material in the “In the Media” tab about recent articles and letters regarding development and the housing market.  The housing market is slowing nationally, and anecdotal evidence indicates it’s slowing in Callahan too.

I would encourage readers to sign up for the blog.  Our plan is to issue about 4 posts a month, so we won’t fill up your “in box”.

Here’s a quick view of our status and efforts.

The effort to file a judicial petition has been abandoned and the deadline passed September 4.  We worked hard to find a lawyer to represent our case – most had conflicts due to the fact that they represent the developers in one capacity or another. The attorneys that did take the time to review our case, before declining to act – felt that there was enough evidence to support the board’s decision and that it would be a waste of our money to take the case. The lawyers’ statements to Julia were – if the Commissioners had a plausible reason that the project was OK, then they were not being arbitrary and capricious (the standard). The Planning Commission and their county staff said it was OK, so they are probably in a defensible position even if the information was false, or inadequate.  We are discussing what to do with the money in our Gofundme account for the legal effort.

A  number of specific permits will be needed for the construction work to proceed. these can be individually challenged.

Julia Gold will begin efforts to explore other options to see if preserving part of the property – most likely the southern part that is adjacent to Forest Service land is possible as soon as she gets through a couple of her own work related deadlines. If anyone is interested in working with her on this endeavor – please let me know and I will get you in touch with her.

Ascente seems to be hard at work to advance their project.  This week Lumos dug two trenches to investigate for faults: their initial work appears to be suspect.  Kristin and another geologist are tracking their efforts.

Ken and Todd have met with a county engineer to understand the project schedule and identify when specific conditions are likely to be met and documented.

The formation of the PAC is proceeding, but the steps have been time consuming.  Part of our current effort is to identify good candidates for our board from other parts of the county.

Hello neighbors! Its Ryan again. I’m writing you on behalf of Ken, Todd and myself. We wanted to thank everyone for all the hard work you have put into this fight against Ascente and have a good ol neighborhood BBQ to blow off steam on this whole issue. So anybody who has been involved or will be affected by this monstrosity are more than welcome to join us at Ken’s house.

5250 Shawna Ln

Friday the 15th, 5-9

Just bring something to throw on the grill, maybe a dish for potluck and your trusty lawn chair. If anyone can help with extra grills and tables, let us know. Just email me at ryanftd@yahoo.com

Hope to see you all there!

Randi Thompson has a new piece in Sunday’s RGJ promoting the new “Plan Truckee Meadows” survey.  It has several lies that we should counter.  I’m hoping to see letters to RGJ countering her assertions.

1. “Current development is better planned that older developments.”  She cites Ascente as an example of a good plan with attention to traffic and safety.  Safety concerns weren’t addressed at all.
2. “Community input is valuable and important.”  This is patently untrue.  The county ignores citizens’ input and the Citizens Advisory Board reports.  Lucey appears to be truly owned by the developers, and maybe Berkbigler too.  All the citizen involvement is a sham.
3. “Growth is inevitable.”  Some growth may be inevitable, but EDAWN, Berkbigler, and Sheive are making a special effort to lure businesses to the area through special incentives and tax arrangements.  So, at least some of the growth we’re seeing is artificially stimulated.

It’s easy to hate Randi, but that’s misdirected.  She’s a paid lobbyist for the developers and real estate interests.  I think of her as being like the doctors that spent a generation claiming that cigarette smoking didn’t cause cancer.  They were paid by the tobacco industry.

RGJ will only accept one letter a month per person, and so I can’t submit one now.  Submitting a letter is easy (link to instructions).  My approach is to write a draft, and then go back and pare it down to meet the 160-word limit.  Washoe County is blatantly corrupt with regard to development.  We need to keep this perception at the forefront.

It’s been slow with a bunch of intermediate steps, but the WRAP PAC is taking shape.  We need to get going since we’re fighting entrenched interests with a lot of money.

• Bob Parker, David Sater and I are the officers for the PAC.
• I have sent the PAC registration form to the Nevada Secretary of State
• I have sent a request to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number.  While we have no employees, we need this number to get a checking account for the PAC.
• I visited a Great Basin branch and have a list of the documents needed to open an account.
• We are reviewing a draft set of bylaws for the organization.

The officers are needed to establish the PAC, but that does not define their roles.  We are considering candidates to join our board from all over the county.  Once we have a board, we can begin to consider the principal efforts of defeating Lucey and maybe Jung in 2018.  Also, we need a sustained outreach effort to individuals and area groups to advance the cause.

Lastly, I’ve created a new “In the Media” page showing recent articles about the commissioners and development in the area.  I still struggle mightily with WordPress, but I have some progress to show.  I hope this page is visible on the site.  I encourage neighbors to continue the drumbeat of negative press about problem development and problem commissioners.  We will not have the campaign budget to cover a lot of TV advertising.  We need to build on the widespread dissatisfaction with the commissioners and the direction of development.

Hello everyone following this blog, and all the new people from around the county who have found this website following all of the recent publicity. I apologize for the lack of activity in this space since mid July. I have been out of town on either vacation or business for the last month, and in that time a lot has changed. Now that I am caught up, I wanted to take this time to let you know where things stand on Ascente and where things are going.

The Present

Like the rest of you, I was dismayed at the outcome of the appeal. As promised we have been working behind the scenes to formulate a legal strategy. The next logical step would be to force a judicial review. However we are coming up short on both money, and willing lawyers. The crowd funding page we put together for legal fees were in effort to get a lawyer to help with our appeal, but we ran out of time to hire one. To get someone to take the case at this point would be far more expensive than the fundraising goal that we met. Maybe more to the tune of $50,000. Even with the money, the other hurdle seems to be finding a property lawyer who is willing to take the case. Most of them make their money working for developers and the others don’t think we can win. But we are still working hard trying to find someone.

The Past

The hard truth is, we may have lost this battle 8 years ago when the zoning was changed. The Forest Area Plan that we have quoted so often in our defense, is the very same document that gave these developers the ability to so dramatically increase their density in the first place. The powers that be played the long game and slipped that in under the rug. This is why it is so critical to have an active, participating community. Had we been as involved on the development of the FAP as we are now, we could have avoided all of the urban sprawl development we are now having to fight. It is with that sentiment, however, that we look to the future.

The Future of Washoe Residents for Appropriate Planning

I’m sure you have noticed some changes to this website, most notably the name. I am proud to announce the launch of WRAP, or Washoe Residents for Appropriate Planning. It dawned on us during this process that there is nobody in this government looking out for people like us, the health of our communities, or the welfare of our county in general. The whole machine is run by developers, their deep pockets, and the commissioners are part of that payroll. Everyone in the system from top to bottom is pro development.

Mayor Schieve and the county have been so single minded in creating growth and trying to be the next silicon valley, that they completely lost track of how to handle that growth, and even what makes our area so special. Now, smack dab in the middle of a housing crisis that they created, they are forcing through every project coming down the pipe regardless of suitability. Whether its Lemmon Valley constantly flooding, or Summerset sliding off hillsides, the county has a history of not properly managing development and rolling over residents who speak out. It is WRAP’s mission to change that. We plan to hold the commissioners, the county, and even the Mayors accountable and help guide the management of growth in a more appropriate direction.

This group and website are still under development, but feel free to peruse the pages for more information on our plans and about urban sprawl in general. With the evolution of this website, this blog will also evolve to start covering the fight against urban sprawl county wide.

A Personal Message

It is with this announcement that I introduce Steve Wolgast. Mr Wolgast is a newer member to our fight against Ascente, but he has infused fresh energy into a group that had been grinding it out for over a year. It became obvious early on that he wanted to pursue this larger cause.

As for myself, I never imagined back when I called the first community meeting about Ascente over a year ago that it would turn into a movement like this. Back then it was just to talk about this thing we didn’t know much about. I didn’t even know many people here. But so many of our neighbors stepped up to the plate. We came together as a community and we accomplished a lot. I would be remiss if I didn’t send a heartfelt thank you to Ken Allen and Todd Mihevc who were really the backbone of this entire thing. They took the reigns and did the bulk of the work. The hours they have put in are immeasurable and we all owe them a debt of gratitude.

I will be taking a step back to recharge and reconnect with my family while I contemplate what’s next. I will still be involved in the fight against Ascente, and aid in the development of WRAP, but I have faith in leaving the bulk of the work to Steve and other capable members of our group.

Thank you all deeply for the efforts and care you have put forward.

Ryan Loetscher

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 …

Alright everybody, its time to get serious here. In discussing this case with a few people with the requisite knowledge, we feel its time to take an aggressive step. We are going to file as a non profit in order to obtain representation. We have been advised that having a land use attorney deliver our appeal will send a strong message and help our chances, not to mention the need to retain one if this thing passes as is.

Remember, this is not a matter of just not liking a development, these developers have not put the requisite work in to protect our neighborhood and its citizens. We’re talking thousands of car trips on our rural roads every day with no improvements to our infrastructure, no increase in fire access or exits and the list goes on. This plan has not met minimum requirements to pass and the only kind of commissioner that says it does is a dirty one. We need to fight back on behalf of our community, AND our county.

Many of you have donated graciously to our previous campaigns for the appeal application fee and to put an advertisement in the RGJ to get people to band together. Now we just need a little more to take this next step.

We will need at least 5 grand to retain an attorney, and if this thing continues it could go over 10, so we are setting this at 5k, but there is no cap. After gofundme takes its cut, we will have a few hundred bucks left over from the other campaigns that we will roll into this. Any excess in this campaign will go towards potential future litigation, or be refunded once the process is over.

Thank you so much for your time, efforts and dedication. Please share and help us reach this goal. We are extremely limited on time.

Donate here