Washoe County worker morale plunges amid union-bashing
Poor county commission decisions cause destruction of staff levels, services
Incline Village litigation, Pioneer Inn purchase and Ballardini Ranch settlement singled out
By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review / 12-22-2011

     RENO, Nev. (12 Dec. 2010) — A sewer line project including a larger pipeline to serve future development at the Ballardini Ranch soon will be completed in southwest Reno.

     RENO, Nev. (18 Nov. 2010) — In early November, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported that "revenue raised through the latest round of sales through the South(ern) Nevada Public Land(s) Management Act also will provide $1 million for construction of a trailhead and trail system at Ballardini Ranch in southwest Reno."

     That may have been great pre-election PR, but it obscured the fact that the property in question was never at issue in the campaign to save more than 1,000 acres for public use (documented in detail at this website).

     The acreage to which the RGJ referred was remaining property the Caramella/Ballardini (actually Pershighel) families had retained, basically the ranch house area, which was never part of the condemnation acreage in question. Washoe County used an earlier announcement of the option to acquire the additional land to create a public impression that some portion had been "saved" — but that was just PR and political sophistry.

     The out-of-state developers scored much more than they would have gotten by going thru the normal approval process plus a $13.5 million bonus from the taxpayers — money the county had to borrow. They got planning and zoning concessions as part of the final deal that may someday allow a new mini-city and perhaps even a high rise hotel casino on that property — something they never would have gotten thru normal channels.

     Had the county commission stuck by its original decision to acquire the ranch, the people would very probably have prevailed in court.

     Then-Commissioner Pete Sferrazza cast the only no vote on the settlement. He said he could have supported it if the public could have gotten something out of it. The public got nothing but debt and the developers got carte blanche to do whatever they wanted on the last large undeveloped swath of the Truckee Meadows.

     The settlement called for the price of the additional acquisition to be driven by the highest and best use of the land IF it were used for something else like a casino, NOT as unimproved farmland, which it was at the time and probably still is.

     There is justice in the world —> As with so many other big projects, the vagaries of economic change bit it in the ass.

     Keep up the good work and the good fight.

     Be well. Raise hell.

— Andrew Barbano

     Be well. Raise hell.

     Subcomandante Cero