Carson City continues to fund majority of V&T Railway project despite law telling other counties to contribute

The law governing the state board running the V&T Railway project says all counties represented should help with funding, even though the majority of counties have given relatively little or nothing.

The Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway Act is a 2001 statute describing the duties of the board formed to build an 18-mile tourist track from Virginia City to Carson City that is modeled after the original railroad built in 1869 during the Comstock mining boom.

The law also made the board a state commission of nine members including Carson City and Storey, Lyon, Douglas and Washoe counties, as well as three state representatives and a member from the V&T Historic Society.

All counties represented, according to the act, are supposed to contribute in line with how much they will benefit from the project.

"The commission shall adopt a budget for its operation and for each project it proposes for presentation to the governing bodies," the act says, later specifically identifying governing bodies as counties. "Each budget must be accompanied by a proposed allocation of the net cost of the budget among the governing bodies which must be based upon the benefit of the commission or project to the jurisdiction of the governing body or another equally appropriate indicator."

Assemblywoman Bonnie Parnell of Carson City, who supported the act, said the original understanding of the law was that every county on the commission would contribute, but it "doesn't seem that's continued to happen."

"I think we all would expect that anyone who has any benefit from this should pony up," she said.

Carson City, however, has given more than all other members combined. The city has raised about $21 million of the $37 million the commission has for a project that will cost at least $55 million.

Storey County has given $2 million, Washoe County has given $250,000 and Lyon and Douglas counties have given nothing. The state has given $2 million and $12 million has come from the federal government.

There will be an advisory question on the November ballot that will ask Carson City to give another $10 million.

Janice Ayres, former head of the V&T commission, worked with state Sen. Mark Amodei on the bill that became the 2001 V&T law and said the entire state benefits from the project and that all counties on the commission should help fund it.

"The idea generally was that the counties that derive the most benefit should have to pay," Amodei said.

Bob Hadfield, current head of the V&T commission, said the law is difficult to enact because the benefit of the project to counties can't be calculated until the train starts operating.

The law also doesn't give the commission a way to make counties contribute, he said, but the sprit of the law is that all counties should.

Carson City does deserve two votes on the commission due to how much it's given, he said, and counties that don't give once the railroad starts operating should leave the commission.

"If you really don't want to play in this ball game, why don't you exit yourself from the process?" he asked.

Jim Lohse, a critic of the commission, said all counties should pay for the ongoing cost of construction and this could be done based on population or another measurement if the commission actually wanted to do it.

Washoe County in particular should pay more, he said, because most visitors who ride the train will stay over in Reno.

Members from Douglas and Washoe counties could not be reached for comment Thursday. Lyon County's representative, Larry McPherson, has said voters in his county have turned down one request to raise taxes for the V&T and are hostile to another.

Construction on the track continues, however. The most recent 4.5-mile section from American Flat in Storey County to outside Mound House in Lyon County will be done in about a month, according to project engineers.

- Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.