Published in The High Desert Advocate February 5, 2021.
Future West Wendover City Center / Pueblo Street Scape Concept
Property Sale – Deep Roots Medical LLC. The sale was completed Thursday January 28th. Sale price based on the approved appraisal of fair market value was $254,826. Closing costs were split between the parties and our net sale amount was $253,279.50. DRN is now owner of the property.
Downtown Master Plan and Code. I continue to work with Babcock Design on the new Downtown Form Based Code and with the flow of that work it should line up nicely with the actual construction side of the project resulting in the Code being ready when construction is complete. I should have something for your initial review about the time we start construction on the project, maybe sooner.
Downtown Development Phase 1 Infrastructure. We are approaching 70% design on the infrastructure but do have final landscaping and amenities to tie in as well as the semaphore signal. I would expect several more weeks and I should be conducting a review with the Engineer and staff middle of February in preparation for final to go to bid.
Based on the Interim Debenture resolution approval the Debenture is not out to bid to see what entities we can get interested in providing us that interim loan. Its not been promising to date with the three I know contacted only one may have interest. So, we will see. The bidding closes on February 8th.
If all goes well, per the schedule, the First Reading of the Debenture Ordinance would be March 2nd.
Peppermill Signage. The final supplement form has been filed with the FAA for the new Peppermill
sign. This is part of the permit requirements to ensure FAA knows that maximum height per the permit
has been reached.
DMV – West Wendover Satellite. The Mayor, Council Member Holm and I have been coordinating on the DMV project. I am now waiting for some final transaction data from DMV so that we can make an evaluation/determination before bringing it before you for consideration including providing any needed approvals for budget augmentation, etc.
MJ Cultivation/Production. Vertical Horizon has been provided the review comments concerning the Conceptual Site Plan submittal. I am expecting to have a Preliminary Site Plan set for review sometime in February.
I have been coordinating also with them on meeting the licensing requirements under our codes. As I understand it based on my last communication with Jas Sandhu (managing partner), Vertical Horizon will not have the State Operating Certificates in their name as of yet but will be operating under a management agreement with Harvest of Nevada LLC. This is due to the delay in the State processing the change in the related certificates. As long as there is a legal management/operating agreement which the State has accepted, that agreement is sufficient to meet our codes though Vertical Horizon will need to submit all the required operating documents and meet the background requirements for
their owners and management personnel.
Lighting at U.S. 93A and Industrial Way. No change here… and I suspect there will not be until the State staff are back in their offices full time. Look for an update March/April.
USDA RD – RBDG – Natural Gas Preliminary Engineering Report. I have communicated this week with Steve Shute of Pinedale Gas and he is now ready to begin the work for this project. The end product will be to provide a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER)/Feasibility Study to address how,
when and in what form we could get Natural Gas service into our community and the community of Wells. This could take various forms from pipeline to truck transportation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), etc. The report will likely take several months to complete. The grant was for approximately $38,000 covering the cost of the work.
Governor Sisolak’s Workgroup on Acceleration of Capital Projects. Find attached to this briefing a letter from Governor Sisolak to all local entities regarding a working group he has in works to assist in accelerating capital projects across the state. Also find attached the listing that I have provided to the Governor’s Office as well as the NV League of Cities. This list is based upon our annually approved CIP and breaks the projects out into subcategories of Transportation and Other types of capital projects, generally in a lose order of importance. I reviewed the document with Mayor Corona before sending. I did receive a confirmation of receipt from Senior Deputy State Treasurer Erik Jimenez and
he thanked us for the quick response… we were the first jurisdiction to respond to the Governor’s request. I would anticipate Mayor Corona participating in the Governor’s discussions.
Nevada Arts Council. Mayor Corona made contact with Stephen Reid, the rep from the Nevada Arts Council recently concerning the City joining other locations across the state where NAC can display art collections. The Mayor asked if I would coordinate and complete the application process which I have done with Mr. Reid. At this point, there is some additional work that will need to be done in our main lobby to accommodate the display, some of which will be paid for by the State and some we will need to cover. The main work I will need to accomplish is put in place an appropriate backing board that the art hanging track will be attached to all while matching the look of our existing paneling in the lobby so that it looks like it was done when the building was built. As such I’m working with Babcock design as well as Bob Murri, a former executive of Ascent Construction (which built the City Hall) to have the same millwork shop create the backing boards. This may cost some $$ but whatever is done in that lobby needs to be done with the same quality/look as the original. Additionally, some of the art track would be placed on the flat wallboard walls in the side public hallways. Below is a sample image of an NAC display at another location along with an image of our main lobby wall that would hold some of the art and the layout of where we would have the artwork displays located within City Hall.
I would like to thank the Mayor for making the effort/connection with NAC on this idea. When complete,
this will be a great benefit to the community (all ages) to be able to come to City Hall and see art collections from across the state and hopefully offer encouragement to artists young and old in our own community to create. Lastly, our lobby area was designed to accommodate something just like this.
FIRE DEPARTMENT / Fire Chief Knudson Report:
“We have delivered the engine 1312 to Fire Trucks Unlimited and returned with the rental that is in full service at their station. They have completely gone over 1312 at there shop and have found a few items that need to be fixed that was not on the original contract. It isn’t much but I am working with them to see what additional cost there might be, so I may be coming back to you for some additional funding to complete the job. One example is there are cracks in the windshield and really need to be replaced as well as some of the small clearance lights have small cracks in them. I will let you know what I find out.
On December 28th we had Covid shots given to 27 first responders from Elko County Fire and Health department. Then on Jan 28th we had them back for County Health for the second shot and they also brought 60 extra shot this time so we not only got our second shots we scrambled and got about 55 other people in town there 1st shot. The second shot will most likely be from our pharmacy around the week of March 3rd.
MAJOR INCIDENT TYPE # INCIDENTS % of TOTAL
Fires 1 3.33%
Rescue & Emergency Medical Service 20 66.67%
Service Call 3 10%
False Alarm & False Call 2 6.67%
Special Incident Type 4 13.33%
TOTAL 30 100%
Detailed Breakdown by Incident Type
INCIDENT TYPE # INCIDENTS % of TOTAL
116 – Fuel burner/boiler malfunction, fire confined 1 3.33%
311 – Medical assist, assist EMS crew 19 63.33%
341 – Search for person on land 1 3.33%
500 – Service Call, other 3 10%
743 – Smoke detector activation, no fire – unintentional 1 3.33%
745 – Alarm system activation, no fire – unintentional 1 3.33%
900 – Special type of incident, other 4 13.33%
TOTAL INCIDENTS: 30 100%
WEST WENDOVER POLICE DEPARTMENT/ Police Chief Cal Kunz
Report:
January 1: Staff responded to several calls for service due to the New Year festivities, however; the additional
staff on duty were able to quickly resolve issues and there were no significant events to report.
January 11: Sgt. Pantelakis and Officer Escareno attended a Field Training Officer (FTO) course and are now
certified to train new officers. This will be helpful as we anticipate three new officers being hired.
January 20: Staff monitored the threats/civil unrest around the Country regarding the Inauguration Day. There
were no threats to our City, however, a plan was place, if needed. There were no events/incidents to report.
January 27: Several staff members attended an online training for first responder mental health. Also, Officers
Hartsell and Ramirez have been identified as our first peer support team members and are receiving
specialized training. We are working on starting an in-house program to provide emotional support and
resources for our first responders in need.
January 29: Staff continues to work with HR to fill open police and dispatch positions. We will have one new
officer starting February 8th and have three other officer candidates currently in the testing process. We will
also be doing interviews to fill two dispatch positions that were both vacated due to resignations.
Police Department Statistics:
Activity October November December
Calls for Service 823 795 752
Adult Arrests 20 24 13
Warrant Arrests 4 8 3
Juvenile Arrests 0 0 0
Citations 29 36 33
Prisoner Transports 18 21 12
Civil 27 21 46
