Carson City manager receives 3 percent raise

The Board of Supervisors held a special meeting Tuesday to conduct City Manager Nick Marano’s annual performance review.

Marano received direction, praise and a 3 percent pay raise, $1,000 of which he’s donating to the city to create an employee recognition fund. Marano currently makes $174,000.

“I think you’ve done a tremendous job. Two words: responsiveness and accessibility,” said Supervisor Karen Abowd.

The supervisors also articulated some goals for Marano in the year ahead, which the city manager will summarize and bring back to the board for approval at its first meeting in July.

Among those objectives are to develop a comprehensive request for proposal (RFP) for the city’s trash collection contract that’s up in a year.

“I’d like to see a lot of work go into that RFP,” said Mayor Bob Crowell. “I know Waste Management has been around a long time but we want good responses.”

The city is considering single-stream recycling, although it may be too costly and restrictive to implement in the near term. It could increase trash collection fees substantially, said Marano, and would require mandatory curbside pickup. He said 20 to 30 percent of residents don’t currently use the city’s service.

“I’ve met with some local purveyors and they’re very interested in submitting (bids),” said Supervisor Brad Bonkowski, who said he often gets complaints about Waste Management.

Marano, during his presentation, talked about the past year’s goals, including working on the municipal code covering the city’s extended stay motels.

He said inspections of four motels have been conducted, but the city may want to revisit the code again to make it stricter.

“Motels we’ve inspected are already sliding back,” said Marano. “I’ve been working with Community Development and think we’re going to have to put some more teeth in the municipal code. We may need to seek abatement of chronic nuisances.”

Supervisor Lori Bagwell asked Marano to create a spreadsheet of city code to track what steps have been taken.

She also suggested an information campaign.

“I want to work on messaging on water and sewer rates. Anything we can do to help spread the message of why we do what we do and combat misconceptions in the community,” Bagwell said.

Bonkowski said getting a deputy city manager in place is a priority. Nancy Paulson, Carson City’s chief financial officer, is slated to take that position once the city finds a new CFO.

Abowd said she wanted to see a revision of the city’s environmental health policies and procedures, and options for citywide Internet connectivity.

Supervisor John Barrette said he’d like to take a look at how redevelopment money is allocated and work done on the Bob Boldrick Theater in the Carson City Community Center.

“We need to replace the seats if we do nothing else,” he said.

There was more general discussion on the city’s roads and how to fund their maintenance since the gas tax indexing ballot failed in 2016.

That includes possibly earmarking tax revenue from sales of recreational marijuana for street repairs — pot for potholes.

Sales tax on retail pot could generate as much as $750,000 annually, said Crowell.

But Bonkowski cautioned that more long-term answers are needed.

“We need to look for real solutions, not Band-Aids,” he said.

The board, which holds its regular meetings in the Sierra Room at the Community Center, met in The Studio at the Adams Hub.