Ballot measures for local roads moving forward

Two tax proposals designed to raise money for neighborhood streets are a step closer to the November ballot after a packed public hearing at the Carson City Regional Transportation Commission meeting Wednesday.

RTC members voted unanimously to recommend to the Board of Supervisors two ballot questions for the general election: one a .25 percent sales tax and one a supplemental governmental services tax collected at the DMV that together could raise an estimated $6.5 million for local streets. The measures wouldn’t fill the entire road funding gap between current revenue and maintenance needs — estimated to be $21 million a year — but they would help, according to the city.

The items are expected to go to the Board of Supervisors in April. In making the motion, Mayor Lori Bagwell, who chairs RTC, specified there would be two ballot measures “requesting the funding be in a separate fund and that it be restricted to neighborhood roads and for construction, maintenance and repair of public roads only.”

Members of the public were concerned new tax revenue would be diverted to regional arterial and collector roads and not neighborhood streets. Some worried the supplemental governmental services tax at the DMV would punish Carson City residents while ignoring visitors who also use roads.

Not on the agenda Wednesday was a general improvement district, another option the city has been exploring to raise new road revenue.

Carson resident Lisa Partee maintained that when it comes to adequate road funding, the city has “kicked the can down the road long enough.”

Resident Bepsy Strasburg argued local roads have deteriorated due to past decisions by the city to prioritize regional roads.

“Before I thought the sales tax and the GST tax were a lesser evil than the GID, but today, when I see a blank checkbook that you want from us for projects yet to be identified but prioritized later without visibility to the taxpayer, I would say no,” said Strasburg. “Bring back the right document with the right project, and then we’ll talk.”

Supervisor Lisa Schuette, who sits on RTC, wondered about the cost of doing nothing.

“What will it cost us when a road is really decaying, really in need? Then it’s more expensive,” she said. “Then the conversation about kicking it down the road … is that what we’re going to do, too? I mean, then we’re just today, all of us in this room, are now part of the problem of kicking it down the road. How do we as a community come together and figure out a way, together, (to) make our roads roads that we can get more years out of, make what we have last longer and be more mindful of the process of road protection?”

The supplemental governmental services tax would operate like the state’s basic governmental services tax paid during vehicle registration, and it could raise $2 million to $2.5 million a year, according to the city. It would levy up to 1 cent for $1 of valuation on a vehicle (up to 35 percent of retail price) and would decrease over time with depreciation.

“It gets to the electric vehicles, the more expensive vehicles, in an equitable manner,” said RTC member Jim Dodson, adding the other proposal, a sales tax, would catch revenue from visitors.

According to Transportation Manager Chris Martinovich, neighborhood roads make up more than 200 miles and the majority of the city’s road network, about 70 percent, but do not qualify for federal funding like regional arterial or collector roads do. He told RTC members the current cost to reconstruct a road (full pavement) is $2.1 million a mile, while the cost to preserve a road (slurry seal) is $380,000 a mile.

The city’s transportation division has been looking at ways to prioritize neighborhood streets, distinguishing between “primary” neighborhood roads and “secondary” neighborhood roads, Martinovich said.

“So, we know that of the 202 miles of local roads in Carson City, $6.5 million isn’t going to be able to allow us to work on all of them,” he said.

Martinovich compared primary local roads to collectors without the traffic volume.

“Our thought process here is to look at those local roads that sort of act like collectors for individual neighborhoods,” he said. “An example would be Desatoya, Desatoya Drive over by Empire Elementary.”

Menlo Drive, Bath Street, Division Street and Emerson Drive were other examples he provided.

“We’re working on a process of identifying a potential list of these primary local roads,” Martinovich said. “Based on what we’re seeing now, we have about 30 or 40 roads potentially in the queue for this initial list.”

RTC member Lucia Maloney worried the ballot questions would fail without more clarity on project prioritization.

“I just want to set us up for success if that’s where we’re going,” she said.

Assuming supervisors approve the ballot questions, the deadline for getting the final questions, arguments and rebuttals to the Clerk-Recorder’s Office is July 15, according to the city. Martinovich said he could produce a framework for prioritization and examples of neighborhood streets in need by June.

After the hearing, Martinovich told the Appeal that since 2018, the city has used five transportation districts to rotate funding every year for regional roads.

“We haven’t done any prioritization for neighborhood streets ever before,” he said. “When we go through the prioritization process, we outline a large list of needs. There are usually five or six regional roads that need to have pavement work. We can only fund three or four of those, and so if we’re not even able to get to the need of the regional roads, we’re definitely not able to get to the need of the local roads.”

In other action, RTC members unanimously approved:

• An approximately $1.8 million contract with Sierra Nevada Construction for the District 3 East Fifth Street Pavement Project for a stretch of road between Fairview Drive and Marsh Road.

• A submission to city’s congressional delegation seeking $3 million in federal community project funding (CPF) for the 5th Street Roundabout Improvement Project that would reconstruct and improve the roundabout at 5th Street and Fairview Drive.

• A letter of intent and grant application to the Nevada Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) seeking $13,333 for a traffic safety campaign.