The Board of Supervisors on Thursday voted to revoke the business license of the North Carson Street long-term stay motel known as the Frontier Motel.
Last month the motel was closed and its residents relocated after the property was cited for health violations including evidence of rodents, bedbugs, exposed electrical wiring, and rooms without hot water or flushing toilets.
“I have a hard time understanding how you could allow people to live in the conditions you did for the period of time you did,” said Supervisor Stan Jones. “The way I feel you haven’t given me the trust you’re going to take care of this and until you do I think your license should be revoked.”
According to the sheriff’s office, the police receive nearly twice as many calls for the Frontier Motel as they do for any of seven other similar extended-stay properties primarily used as residences in the city.
Harbans Handa, one of the property’s owners, said he had hired contractors to rehab the property, provide pest control, and security to monitor potential criminal activity.
“The revocation is not going to stop you from completing all the work you’re doing,” said Mayor Lori Bagwell. “Apply for a business license once you’ve done all the work you’ve committed to do.”
The motel’s owner must meet four conditions: correcting all items outlined in notice of code violations; develop a detailed plan with the sheriff’s office on how the business will stop criminal activity on site; compliance with the city code; and payment of all fees and penalties.
If the business reapplies for a business license, it will have to come back before the board to demonstrate it has met all those conditions before the city relicenses it.
The board also approved the roughly $180 million 2022 final budget with a few minor changes made to the tentative budget.
The supervisors approved a series of items to assess both the downtown and newly-created South Carson improvement districts, which assess property owners for maintenance of the streetscape. The downtown NID assessment was $43,198, or 23 percent, less than last year’s assessment in order to reduce the NID’s reserves to 20 percent. The South Carson NID was assessed $69,620 and the city adds $22,000 for weed control and greenbelt maintenance.
The board divvied up $578,000 in Community Development Block Grant money. Friends In Service Helping’s emergency referral service program received $254,544; $101,672 went to Carson City Parks, Recreation and Open Space for its Long Ranch pedestrian ramp project; Ron Wood Family Resource Center’s chronic absenteeism program was awarded $30,000; and $10,000 went to RSVP for veteran services and support.
Two large Public Works contracts were awarded, a $2.3 million contract to Sierra Nevada Construction Inc. to redo the 3rd Street parking lot on Curry Street and a $2 million contract to Granite Construction Co. to construct the landfill scale house.