Carson City Regional Transportation Commission member Jim Dodson takes questions from the Board of Supervisors on Thursday before being reappointed to the RTC.
Photo by Scott Neuffer.
The Carson City Board of Supervisors’ unanimous reappointment of Jim Dodson to the Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday occurred after an illuminating discussion on local road funding.
The reappointment to the five-member commission was for a full two-year term. Dodson, a former Nevada Department of Transportation assistant director of engineering, has served on the RTC since 2021.
“I think I have the ability to contribute and do contribute to the board,” Dodson told supervisors. “I have the interest, I have the time, and my background is pretty much entirely in the transportation area. I think that perhaps I fill somewhat of a niche on boards. My main interest and experience are in more of the operations, the design side of things. My experience is extensive in road design and construction.”
The other applicant, resident and U.S. Army veteran Mark Costa, has a background with NDOT as well and served as chief financial officer for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation for four years, according to his application. Supervisors said he was well-qualified, lauded his willingness to apply and encouraged him to continue his interest in the RTC and consider future openings.
Both candidates were interviewed by supervisors. Mayor Lori Bagwell asked about local road funding given two ballot measures for such funding were rejected by voters in November. Those ballot measures were a result of a years-long process to find new funding mechanisms, seeing RTC review before supervisors approved them for the General Election ballot.
The first proposed measure was a .25 percent sales tax, and the second was a supplemental government services tax collected at the DMV. Projected to raise $7 million for local neighborhood streets that don’t receive federal grants like regional roads, the ballot measures failed by double-digit margins.
“As an RTC board member, it was disappointing to see the results of the election,” Dodson said. “I think a significant effort was made to point out the need and the use of those funds in a very needed manner, funding local road maintenance and repair.”
Going forward, Dodson said the city could shift available funding (estimated to be around $4.5 million annually) toward local roads, while relying on federal dollars for maintenance of regional collectors and arterials. He also said the V&T infrastructure tax could be redirected to local streets; that’s an existing .125 percent sales tax scheduled to sunset in 2027.
Dodson further mentioned a special improvement district or SID. Unlike a city-wide general improvement district (GID), a smaller SID could be set up by neighbors who want to fix their streets in a specific area, and the entity could be formed to sunset after project completion.
“I know that constituent input is crucial to this, and I think formation of a SID would perhaps pick one-time packages to address some of the worst problems in each of the areas on a one-time basis and help us creep up on our improvement of our performance measures, our pavement condition index,” he said.
A new survey of Carson’s pavement condition is expected to be released early next year, Dodson said, which will improve the overall picture of road deterioration and improvements needed.
Before the RTC interview, Supervisor Maurice White opposed two items pulled from the consent agenda, both dealing with dedication of new public roads. The first, a final subdivision map for Plateau Phase 1 with 57 single family lots and other areas at the east end of Morgan Mill Road, was approved 4-1 with White voting no.
The second, dedication of Pilot Peak Court and other street portions in the Lompa Ranch development as outlined in the final map for Blackstone Ranch Phase 1-C, was approved 4-1 with White voting no.
“I don’t believe it’s appropriate to accept these roads from the developers,” White said.
Bagwell said conditions for the projects were previously approved with the tentative maps, and developers had complied. But the issue surfaced again during the RTC appointment because White asked the candidates: “Would you advocate for a policy to not accept new roads from housing developers?”
Dodson responded that it would be difficult to make a blanket policy because eventually new streets “are part of the community.”
“I would think that would be somewhat of a concern to me,” he said. “Falling back on maybe these SID ideas that perhaps some of that could be used to take care of those roads, and that could be done.”
Supervisor Lisa Schuette asked Dodson about multimodal transportation and components of connectivity.
“I think that we have made strides in that regard through the Complete Streets program that we looked at in some of our major corridors, and we’ll continue to develop those,” Dodson said.
He added public transit through Jump Around Carson is another important component of “having a connected community” as well as pedestrian safety improvements as seen through the Safe Routes to Schools program and implementation of a Local Road Safety Plan.