By Mark Waite
Judith Holmgren, chairman of Referendum 2012, tried Wednesday to get the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission to change Nye County Code requiring a public vote before removing the 9.5-mile buffer between correctional facilities and residences.
Nye County Deputy District Attorney Charles Watkins advised the RPC, “this is simply not the correct forum to do this. The state Legislature handed this board down certain powers and the board is just not permitted to hand powers over to the people at will.”
Watkins suggested Holmgren go to the state Legislature to change the law.
“In other words, we can’t recommend approval because we can’t give away rights,” RPC Chairman Terry Hand said.
Holmgren said Nye County Commissioner Dan Schinhofen suggested she contact the RPC to word an item so county commissioners can vote on it.
“Apparently, they thought people involved with zoning would better word the item upon which they wish to take a vote. That was the understanding by which we were directed to place this before you,” Holmgren said.
County commissioners declined to place that question requiring a public vote before removing the 9.5-mile buffer zone on the Nov. 6 ballot after Referendum 2012 gathered 1,655 signatures on a petition.
District Attorney Brian Kunzi said he considered the five petition drives by the group initiatives to create new law, that would require the signatures of 15 percent of the people who voted in the last election, or 2,168 signatures. A referendum to change existing law requires the signature of only 10 percent of those voters or 1,445 signatures, a threshold met by all five petitions.
Other ballot questions the group wanted would ask for a vote on Yucca Mountain, preventing the gathering of wild horses, requiring a public vote before any action on Pahrump incorporation and the only question county commissioners agreed to put on the ballot, whether to dissolve the Pahrump Town Board and make it advisory only.
Butch Clendenen, who lives near the federal detention center at 2280 N. Kitty Hawk Dr., said residents living in that area were unaware when county commissioners removed the 9.5-mile, or 50,000 foot, buffer zone that enabled Corrections Corporation of America to build the Nevada Southern Detention Center which opened in October 2010.
County commissioners in 2007 removed the 9.5-mile buffer zone, but reinstated it in 2010 by a 3-2 vote after Bob Howard made a request to the RPC. When it went to the county commission, commissioners Butch Borasky and Gary Hollis voted against reinstating the buffer, without commenting at the meeting.
After commissioners decided not to place the buffer zone question on the ballot this year, Holmgren made another unsuccessful attempt under public comment at a September county commission meeting. Commissioner Joni Eastley didn’t get an answer on whether any other detention facilities were coming into the area.
Detention center opponents pointed to communities that eventually got numerous correctional facilities like Florence and Eloy, Arizona. Schinhofen commented he didn’t want residents voting on every decision commissioners make.
Holmgren’s letter to Nye County Planning Director Steve Osborne charged officials in Nye County, desperate to attract jobs “were induced to host industry of last resort” depressing real estate values in a significant radius around them.
The detention center led to the industrialization of East Mesquite Avenue, with recycling facilities and an expansion of Joe’s Sanitation that she charged caused Kim Clendenen to have vomiting, headaches and require breathing treatments.
Earlier in the meeting, the Clendenens objected to a conditional use permit that allowed Pahrump Valley Disposal to build three shade structures over concrete slabs, to provide protection for workers at a metal salvage and recycling operation at 1470 E. Mesquite Ave. The property is in a heavy industrial zone.
Butch Clendenen said he hears the noise from another car-crushing, recycling operation less than a quarter-mile from this operation. He said recycling metal under the shade structures would create an echo chamber.
Hand said Pahrump Valley Disposal wasn’t putting up a metal building, just shade structures.
“The sound, with all due respect to Mr. Clendenen, I don’t think it’s going to be enhanced,” said Robert Grosbeck, a consultant for Pahrump Valley Disposal. “I can’t speak for the competitor up the street but I assure you we do everything to be good neighbors and I think we demonstrated that in all the years we operated there. If there is an issue we’re willing to sit down and talk.”
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- Mark Waite / Pahrump Valley Times – Judith Holmgren addresses the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission during the group’s regular Wednesday meeting. She sought a zoning change regarding prison buffer zones and residences.
“After commissioners decided not to place the buffer zone question on the ballot this year, Holmgren made another unsuccessful attempt under public comment at a September county commission meeting. Commissioner Joni Eastley didn’t get an answer on whether any other detention facilities were coming into the area”
Let’s see….. Two large Detentions Centers already with possibly more on the way and No Buffer zone. If that’s not Bad enough…. we’ll probably Never see the Reverse 911 we were promised. A Reverse 911 would have warned us of a possible break-out. I may be wrong, but it appears to me our Public Officials just don’t care about the citizens of Pahrump. Remember that when you go to vote. However, I have the upmost Respect for Commissioner Joni Eastley. Sorry she’s leaving, we may leave also.
Tow large Detention Centers? Where’s the other one? I only know of the one. And there are no others on the way. None have been proposed, not are anticipated. And there IS a 9.5 Mile exclusion zone on the books. From past experience, I can assure you there will not be any attempt to amend that distance. And I am sure if anyone DOES broach the subject, the outcry and dissent will be so vocal as to nip it in the bud.
Putting something like this to a vote of the citizens is a waste of money. The cost to conduct such a vote is huge. We have a representative form of government and as such, we elect people to vote for us on these issues. Besides, if every issue that many people want put to a vote of everyone would have to wait for election days, whereas we have County Commissioners’ meetings twice a month. It’s a no brainer for me.
That should be TWO. Phooey!
I thought the new jail was referred to as a Detention Center also. It’s a lot bigger than the old jail and will probably house some pretty harden criminals. That one evidently doesn’t require the exclusion zone. It’s like other big jails right in the center of cities. However, for those on the hill the 9.5 mile exclusion zone on the books did nothing.
Hopefully, you are right and it won’t happen again. I’ve asked many times
What happened to the Reverse 911? Guess it must of been swept under the rug.
My sister has it where she lives and there’s no Detention Centers anywhere near
her.
The new jail is just that, a new county jail, replacing the old one which was woefully inadequate. This won’t hold anyone that wasn’t already being held in county lockup. And, no, it doesn’t fall under the 9.5 mile exclusion rule because it is not a detention facility, it’s a jail, a jail that was grandfathered into existence.
BTW, the Detention Facility on Mesquite is NOT a jail, per se. It hold those awaiting federal adjudication. Those that are found guilty are then sent on to other federal or state prisons to serve their sentences. No one there is serving a sentence apart from those awaiting transfer to their permanent facility.
And there is only the one on the hill and for that one, the 9.5 mile exclusion zone was lifted by an open vote of the Board of County Commissioners in several open meetings. Meetings that were publicly noticed and well covered by the two newspapers here in Pahrump.
We couldn’t attend any of those meetings because my husband had various medical problems followed by a heart attack.