Gerling’s service honored at Beatty Town Advisory Board May 12 meeting

Erika Gerling’s fifteen years of service on the Beatty Town Advisory Board was remembered with a presentation in her honor during the board’s May 12 meeting.

Gerling served many of those years either as treasurer or as chairperson. She has a long history of service in the community going back to the 1990’s. When Barrick closed the Bullfrog mine and the town’s population declined, she took over the town’s Little League program, keeping it going for some time. She also served as president of the Beatty PTA and performed several leadership roles in the town’s Boy Scout program.

Since Gerling’s retirement, the BTAB has so far had no success in filling her seat. A first advertising period garnered no letters of interest. The board has now authorized the re-advertisement of the position from May 13 to June 2 and has authorized the staff to extend the deadline if no letters are received.

Anyone interested in serving on the board should send or drop off a letter of interest to the town office in the rear of the Community Center.

At the May 12 meeting, the board also sent a comment letter approving the abandonment of a land-locked and unused portion of Reibel Street, approved the town’s fiscal year 2026 budget, and canceled their second meeting of May because of the Memorial Day holiday.

Shahzad Lateef, Nevada Energy’s project director for the Greenlink West electrical transmission line project, gave a presentation on progress and timelines. He also answered questions from the audience.

One issue raised was the dust being created during the construction of the Sagebrush Substation in Amargosa Valley.

Lateef said that the crew had encountered a kind of dust they had not dealt with before, but were working on finding better dust control methods. He said that once construction is completed on the 110-acre facility, the only dust should be from vehicles.

During the presentation and questioning, Lateef said that applications from anyone wanting to use the transmission line were on a first-come, first-served basis and that the line’s capacity was already “fully booked.” Questioned after the meeting, he said that none of that booked capacity was from solar energy projects.

Richard Stephens is a freelance reporter living in Beatty.