Letters to the Editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Hurdles in store for cost of civic center construction

As a new SeaTac city council member, I was subjected to a long debate over building a new city hall. Our new city hall venture was like Nye County’s “civic center,” except, design and preconstruction were already completed and became hard to explain how we dumped the money into a project to change or back out. Instead, we entered into months of executive sessions (no public) discussing every bureaucrat and elected official’s dream part of the new construction for a $50 million project.

For months, I listened in amazement as to how elected officials and department heads were silently pitching to leave a legacy on the project. We were compartmentalizing and trying to inject everyone’s ideas into the building and construction. Most agreed the plaques would list all the elected officials involved; but should department heads, if any, be listed, was a hot debate. We held numerous sessions on what the paint colors, design of the landscaping, elected officials’ parking, department heads’ parking, if any would be.

I was treated as the new kid on the block and reminded I was not there from the beginning. I finally said, “What the hell, are we wasting our time over cosmetics, paint, plaques, and political notoriety? I am not spending my time until we discuss final costs, critical aspects of construction, i.e., what is the cement sack mix of the foundation, how many 2x4s, including real costs! We have an international airport in the middle of the city, why not add a floor to rent to make the payments. Has anyone searched for a building to buy? Boeing moved out of a great large three-story building, and it is for sale for $18 million. We can only do this by raising taxes, why have we not invited the public to these meetings?”

The answer was, “because we already have the groundbreaking scheduled.”

Long story short, when I made this public, we bought the Boeing building and put a couple of million into it with a full floor rented to an airline company, saving millions! I was elected mayor and no one, including me, got their name on a gold-plated plaque. A civic center will not pay, however. Make space to recruit a business that will create jobs and help taxpayers pay the costs or at least put it to vote to fix our roads. Or have a civic center.

Gene Fisher

USN Retired