Why is the concept of using a community/commissioner approved land use master plan as a guide to addressing development requests so hard to grasp?  It makes me wonder why we are paying good money to support a Planning Department – with four employees.

This is not a criticism of planning staff.  It is just the way of the world in Lyon County.  It is the way it has been for many, many years and the primary reason the county’s finances are in such dire straights right now.  All it takes are three commissioners who couldn’t give a damn about planning proprieties, or the negative impact their irresponsible decisions have on the county, neighboring properties, traffic, infrastructure, the environment, et al.

When I think of the community participation and agitation, resident arguments and input, developer and commissioner input and shenanigans that went into the West Central Lyon County Land Use Master Plan – it still gets my hackles up to think it was all for naught.....but it really shouldn’t upset me, I guess.

The West Central Lyon County Land Use Master Plan has proven to be, simply put, a rather expensive, but absolutely meaningless file of pretty maps and hollow rhetoric. 

Considering the continued blatant abuse of this plan, one must also wonder why the County is bothering to pursue a rather lengthy, expensive ($250,000 plus staff time) process of creating a Lyon County Master Plan. If I were a commissioner right now, I would demand this current process be stopped immediately – BECAUSE TIME WILL PROVE IT TO BE SIMPLY A FEEL GOOD - BUT MEANINGLESS EFFORT!

This would go against State Statute, of course, but what the heck.  There are three commissioners who apparently care little of the rules, regulations and common sense regarding proper development anyway.

Editor’s note: NRS 278.030 requires each county with a population over 40,000 to create by ordinance a planning commission consisting of seven members.  NRS 278.150 requires that: The planning commission shall prepare and adopt [emphasis added] a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the city, county or region which in the commission’s judgment bears relation to the planning thereof.

Commissioners Mortensen, McPherson and Tibbals should be the first in line to call for the end to the current Master Plan process.  They have proven time and again they feel the zonings/land uses designated within the Lyon County Land Use Master Plan and West Central Lyon County Land Use Master Plan are meaningless.  They believe themselves to be better judges of what zonings should be in certain areas of the county than the residents of the community do, or than the Planning Department professionals do, or than the Planning Commission does.

As far as these three planning guru’s are concerned, whatever developers want, they should get – especially if it will be more profitable to them.  Heaven forbid a developer be stuck with unsalable property in changing economic times.

I have been involved in and attentive to Lyon County politics since I was appointed to the County Planning Commission 1985.  In the intervening years I have attended many more commission meetings than I have missed.  I should be hardened to such idiocy by now, but it still upsets me to see such ignorant, baseless, self-serving decisions made by those sitting in the seat of power.

The reasons given in the past few months by these three individuals – in ‘justifying’ their votes to overturn planning decisions and go against the recommendations of planning staff - could be characterized as laughable; however, criminal would be a more appropriate term for the fact their decisions seriously and adversely affect the lives of all Lyon County residents, particularly those living in the Dayton area.

The saddest (most laughable?) thing of all, however, is the realization they continue to get away with it.

So, again, I ask.......why is Lyon County in these hard economic times spending staff time and money on a plan for the future while those with the power to enact its guidelines demonstrate a continuing disdain for such efforts.

Think about it.

Nancy Dallas, Editor/Publisher

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