Bagwell ready for new term as Carson City mayor

Carson City Mayor Lori Bagwell wished the community a happy holiday season during a post-election interview Dec. 12.

“I just wish them all a merry Christmas and faith and cheer. It’s what I want for all the families in Carson City,” she said.

The Appeal met the mayor at one of her favorite hangouts: the Starbucks across from Mills Park where she is on a first-name basis with the baristas. Bagwell, 62, was reelected in November for what she said will be her last term on the Board of Supervisors. She spent her first term and a half working as a supervisor for Ward 3 then was elected mayor in 2020. The conversation started with holiday cheer then covered some difficult issues that arose during the Nov. 5 General Election.

Road funding

Although Bagwell beat challenger Jim Shirk by a double-digit margin, the tax proposals for local road funding that she and the Board of Supervisors approved for the November ballot failed by double-digit margins.

The first proposed tax measure on the ballot was a .25 percent sales tax, and the second was a supplemental government services tax collected at the DMV. They were projected to raise $7 million annually for local streets that don’t receive federal grants like regional collectors or arterials. While a new pavement survey of city streets is underway, the city was reliant on a 2022 analysis showing an estimated $21 million gap between maintenance needs of the existing road network and current funding levels.

The problem, city officials have maintained, is road construction costs have exceeded fuels and sales taxes set in place decades ago. A graph from Public Works shows gas tax revenue growing by 25 percent from 2000 to 2022 and construction costs growing by 123 precent over the same time.

Bagwell wasn’t sure what message voters were sending with their rejection of the tax proposals.

“I want to honestly start with it’s difficult to know the rationale of the vote,” she said. “That’s my first issue, right? Well, what message was it? One, was it solely they don’t want a tax increase? Is that the message? Or is the message they don’t believe the issue is as large as we think it is? I don’t know the answers. Probably a combination of all that. Or the third option is, ‘Oh, we think the Board of Supervisors should prioritize it themselves and figure out how to fund it with existing resources.’ I’m going to bet there’s a combination of those three for different reasons that people voted.”

Bagwell explained the challenge for the board and staff: looking at limited funding and deciding whether to leverage that funding as match funds for federal grants.

“Do I forgo $40 million in federal dollars so I can put it all to local roads?” she said. “Is that a wise use of the taxpayers’ money? Or do I make your $1 the match to bring in $3? Do I prioritize a road that has 400 vehicle trips on it a day over one that has 20,000 vehicle trips?

“And those are the things we grapple with. I get it. If you live in a neighborhood, and your roads are in bad shape, you want the road fixed in front of your home. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you at all. But I know you also want Roop Street, and (highways) 50 and 395. I know you want all of those roads to be good roads, too. So how do we allocate? I see that as our challenge over the next year or two — is to see if we can get any money going to the local roads.”

A city-wide general improvement district, or GID, with assessments on properties was one option explored before the ballot questions were finalized. It was not acted upon after public pushback, however. Unlike a sales tax, supervisors could enact a GID without voter approval, but Bagwell said that would not happen under the current board.

“It doesn’t require a vote of the people, but that’s what we promised, and I don’t see this board going back on its word,” she said.

A special improvement district, or SID, is another option recently floated by Jim Dodson of the Regional Transportation Commission. Bagwell called it a subset of a GID but a measure that neighbors themselves bring to the board for specific improvements in a specific area paid for by the residents. SIDs can be designed to sunset after project completion.

“That’s the beauty of a SID is you, as the owners within that area, you’re making the decision,” Bagwell said.

As far as the ballot measures, Bagwell said she’d be willing to bring them back to voters, not only the two from this year but also a fuels tax indexing measure voters shot down in 2016.

“I think you bring them back unless something federally changes or at the state level changes that lets me have it in a different way,” she said. “I would try anything that I thought the public might support.”

She warned about cutting city departments to get road funding.

“I just don’t think the public is prepared for me to slash the budget, that the roads are more important than a sheriff’s deputy. I don’t believe that’s what the public really thinks,” she said.

Housing costs

The median sales price of a single-family home in Carson City in November was $542,000, according to a monthly sales report by Sierra Nevada Realtors. Increased costs of living and housing costs were issues during the election, at the local, state and national levels. According to the annual Master Plan report by Community Development, new residential building permits issued this year were shy of 300 total, compared to more than 500 in 2023.

Bagwell acknowledged many economic conditions lie outside of her control as mayor, but she discussed what she and local leaders can focus on.

“Really very little other than the price of housing in and of itself, to me, is a supply and demand model,” she said. “When I have people that say, ‘You should have a moratorium on building because we want to stay small,’ I’m like, yeah if I do that, the price of housing will skyrocket because there’s still the demand for the housing. And so, that’s why I’m sticking with the Growth Management plan that we have … You want slow and steady.”

Bagwell said she and fellow board members want to avoid economic boom-and-bust cycles and instead provide continuity for businesses and residents. What they can control, she said, is city policy that affects construction costs and by extension the local home market. She mentioned an upcoming update of the fire code, an upcoming policy for so-called tiny homes (as mandated by the Nevada Legislature in 2021) and a recent revision of the city’s Title 18 and development standards.

“It’s being able to look at the regulations and plans that you’re being asked to adopt,” she said.

One change in the Title 18 update was eliminating tenancy requirements for guest homes or accessory dwelling units (ADU). This means that ADUs can be rented and not restricted to family members. Bagwell said this was an attempt to make more homes available. At the same time, the board stipulated the Public Works director may reject any ADU application if there’s not adequate water or sewer capacity.

Bagwell described such changes as pieces in the puzzle of affordable housing in line with the city’s overall Growth Management Plan, which caps the number of residential building permits allocated every year to 3 percent population growth.

Top three priorities

Facility needs (such as renovation of the Carson City Courthouse), recruiting a new fire chief (CCFD Chief Sean Slamon put in his retirement for May 31), and the ongoing Master Plan update were the top priorities Bagwell saw on the horizon heading into the new year.

On facilities, it’s not just the courthouse that needs more space and/or upgrades. Bagwell mentioned the juvenile detention facility and city hall. Of the latter, she said, “I would tell you I have people working in closets. So, we’ve converted closet space to make a space for someone.”

The good news, she said, is the state of Nevada is also looking at facility needs in the city.

“Can we share parking lots? What are the economies of scale we can do? What can we do with other partners in the area?” she said.

Regarding the fire chief, Bagwell expected the city manager to form a panel of experts to help “cull through applications and invite the top ones to interview.” Slamon has led CCFD since 2017, and Bagwell previously assured the public there would be no lapse in critical services as a new fire chief is selected.

The third priority of the Master Plan update was trickier to discuss because the document was still in draft form at the time of the interview. Supervisors are expected to adopt the updated plan come spring.

Bagwell noted vacant buildings have been a prominent topic of the update process and wondered how new land use designations and underlying zoning could improve the situation. The key, she said, is to be able to implement the update with specific actions, which means another revision of Title 18.

“I think that’s the most important thing, to me, is your plan has to be realistic,” she said.

Arts and culture

Bagwell wrote a Christmas poem for the Silver and Snowflake event Dec. 6. Asked if she was writing a manuscript of poetry, she said, “I would have no time for that.”

Bagwell did say she’s teased about being the “art mayor” because she’s supportive of the arts.

“I think I see the beauty. I see it as a mental health solve. I think people need a place to go. And so much of our art is free,” she said.

She discussed the city’s first commissioned public art, the metal sculpture in the South Stewart and South Carson roundabout as fashioned by New Mexico artist Karen Yank. It was installed Dec. 6. The work has attracted fans and detractors, some criticizing it as a waste of money. The roughly $200,000 project underwent an extensive submission process and Cultural Commission review before it landed at the Board of Supervisors. Bagwell stressed the money came from redevelopment funding and a portion of room tax dedicated to arts and culture.

She hoped people who didn’t like the sculpture would give it a chance.

“I think something about art is I do recognize it’s in the eye of the beholder. So, again, I’m not upset if it isn’t your favorite piece,” she said. “There are some of those that don’t think that was the best priority to expend money on, and I get that, too. When you have to talk about the arts and where the funding comes from, it’s extremely hard to message where it comes from.”

She reiterated the portion of room tax “can’t go to roads.”

“It’s a dedicated funding source for the arts and while people think, ‘Oh, you can just move money anywhere you want,’ it’s only if it’s in the authority of that tax or funding source. And in this case, no, it can only go to the arts,” she said.

Redevelopment funds, in contrast, are broader in terms of use, designed to combat blight or promote economic development in a specific district, Bagwell said. McFadden Plaza, which opened in 2016, was a project that received redevelopment money, she noted.

“You’re always going to have people that disagreed with a decision you made,” she said. “That’s just how it is. It’s part of a process. But I want people to believe that their leadership is truly trying to take the best interest of the community as a whole when they make decisions. And that they usually — I feel as time goes on — work out.”

Retirement

What Bagwell said she loves most about the holiday season in Carson City is family.

“You know when you do that Christmas event on that first Friday, and you just look out across the Capitol … I just saw families. Being together. They were so excited to take a sleigh ride or to watch the lights turn on or to listen to their fifth graders sing. And then to watch them wander around. And what was amazing, to me, was the crowd did not dissipate the moment the fifth graders were done singing. They were walking through the Capitol and looking at all the lights together. And then going down to McFadden Plaza or standing in line to get a hot chocolate. But they stayed as a family unit to celebrate the beginning of the season, and I look at that as, ‘We’re still the small town.’

“You know, during the election, it was a lot of people: ‘We want to stay the small-town feel.’ So, when I looked at that event, that’s exactly what I thought. We’re still the small-town charm, that is who we are. We can celebrate our small town, and for me, that’s family.”

Bagwell said she had no set plans for when her new term is finished. She didn’t seem keen on retiring from public life.

“You’d think for as much as I love to plan, I’d be a great planner at my own personal life, but usually opportunities knock at the door, right?” she said. “I just leave the door open.”