A Practical View of the Responsibility of Citizenship
by Janine Hanse
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I spent the afternoon of August 21st, at a meeting of the Elko County Road Services Advisory Committee. Two weeks ago ten of us, with many others in support, spoke out and challenged the Elko County Commission’s plan to raise gas taxes. In a temporary victory for citizens, the Commission postponed the vote to raise the gas tax until December 2012. Then, the Commission challenged the citizens to attend and participate with practical ideas on how to address the needs of maintaining the roads in the county without raising taxes. Several took up the challenge.
I found some members of the Commission, the volunteer Advisory Committee and particularly county employees (bureaucrats) to be defensive and antagonistic towards the public who attended the “public hearings” and courageously said NO to raising the gas tax. Rather than listening or opening their minds to suggestions, criticisms or ideas they simply justified why they had to raise the gas tax.
Perhaps they are unaware, but our job as citizens, indeed our responsibility is to hold our public “servants” accountable. It is our responsibility to object, to question, to criticize, to offer suggestions, ideas and alternatives, and to expose the cloistered process to the transparency of public perusal. Because of the incredible size and infinite layers of government, citizens find it nearly impossible to consistently perform their job of holding the government accountable. So when it does happen it may surprise and discomfort the “government.”
Surprisingly, during the first meeting to which the public was challenged to offer suggestions to the Road Committee, there was a plethora of ideas. These included an acknowledgement from the bureaucrats when pressed by Commissioner Demar Dahl that there was a way to raise almost half ($200,000) of the $469,000 the gas tax would raise without taking it away from any existing government funding or function by using future Pilt money (Payment in Lieu of taxes) to help pay for the roads. Other suggestions included one by Cliff Gardner that would reduce the cost of replacing a bridge from $600,000 to about $60,000 by using a heavy gage culvert costing $10,700. Amazing, what a little scrutiny from citizens can accomplish in just one meeting when they have been working on this for six years.
It was also exposed that the county does not have, as they did previously, a 1, 3, 5, or 10 year plan for road maintenance. As Brad Roberts former County Commissioner said, “Raising taxes to correct the problem is not the correct policy—when it is caused by a failure to plan. The road budget has increased by 38% in ten years from $2.1 million to $2.9 million,” testified Roberts.
One Advisory member suggested that because the tax would be paid by tourists traveling the I-80 corridor it made the tax more palatable. Palatable to whom…locals would be paying at least twice what travelers would, according to Roberts. The gas tax will take more money out of the local economy.
Even Commissioner Jeff Williams had been thinking since the original meeting, where he had planned to vote for the tax increase, what could be done to reduce costs. He suggested using a camper trailer for those engaged in road maintenance that spent a majority of their time traveling to and from the location of the job to increase productivity and reduce costs. The original idea had been suggested by Commissioner Dahl.
Other counties such as Eureka contract out their road work on paved roads. Has Elko County compared the price of contracting the work out rather than doing it in house?
Gary Wines suggested that he was hearing too much “can’t” from the government instead of a discussion of what could be done.
All in all, the citizens exceeded all expectations in their scrutiny of and suggestions for the Roads Committee, performing their constitutional responsibilities by holding the government accountable in Elko County.
Janine Hansen is a candidate for Nevada Senate.