Night meeting draws downtown supporters

Staff report

The city board of supervisors' first evening meeting drew an average-sized crowd, many there to support Supervisor Robin Williamson's presentation on the Carson City Downtown Consortium.

About 30 people, including several city employees, signed a sign-up sheet for the group.

Phil Patton, husband of Carson City Library Board of Trustees Chairwoman Phyllis Patton, said he wouldn't have been able to come to a regular 8:30 a.m. meeting because of work.

He said he was there to show his support for Williamson's group.

"As a part of the Consortium process," according to the group's plan, "small, multi-disciplinary, issue-oriented teams will probe, analyze and discuss matters pertinent to the implementation of many aspects of the downtown redevelopment vision, not only within its boundaries but also as it relates to the community-at-large."

Supervisors voted in February to change their meeting times on a three-month trial basis starting this month. Their meetings are on the first and third Thursdays of each month.

The second meeting of the month will stay at the original 8:30 a.m., but the first meeting of the month will start at 3 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. following a dinner break.

At the meeting, supervisors also approved a settlement with the Carson Nugget, which filed a lawsuit in 2000 saying the city didn't have the right to charge money for sections of Plaza Street it bought in 1974 and Spear Street it bought in 1980.

The city will pay the Nugget about $250,000 in reimbursements, $150,000 for a left turn signal at Carson and Robinson streets and about $480,000 for a hotel, conference center and/or parking garage or to do roadwork on East Robinson and North Plaza streets.