Voices for Sustainable Growth in Washoe County
Commissioner Jim Galloway (Signing Petition) with Charles Ragusa
Click here for video (12 min.)
Click here for audio (12 min.)
Statement by Pamela Galloway
Petition Language
Contact (How to) Info
Pamela Galloway
Bob Fulkerson
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Voices for Sustainable Growth in Washoe County
Who are we?
I'm Pamela Galloway, 38-year resident, journalist, and for the past decade a caregiver for elderly family members, and an advocate for growth tied to sustainable water supply.
We are men and women of all ages, Democrats, Republicans, from all walks of life, residing throughout the county from Southern Washoe Valley to the Northern Valleys and Spanish Springs - living in the McCarran Ring downtown, outside the ring. Quite diverse. What unites us is our concern that growth and development needs to be guided by sustainable water supply.
Many of us have spent years actively participating in local and state government in a variety of ways: we are journalists, community activists, lawyers, planners, lobbyists, contractors, current and former elected officials, water planners, a regional planning expert, water experts, businessmen, retired police and military, environmentalists, moms, realtors. Active and retired public and private sector employees.
How do you join?
All you need to do is say you are a voice for sustainable growth in Washoe County. Then you are one of us.
The experience of many of us in recent years has been our voices have been not been regarded sufficiently - special interests have a disproportionately loud megaphone while the general public is often sidelined when key decisions are made governing growth, land use, and water.
We are promoting two ballot initiatives to pass the megaphone to "We, the people" in 2008.
Washoe County's population is 418,000 today, with known sustainable water supply that can serve 600,000. We are "sustainable growthers", not no-growthers. We still have a lot of growing to do around here. But some land-use planners have a population of 1.2 million people in Washoe County on the drawing board, twice the number of people than our sustainable water resources can serve. Sprawling out and up where sufficient water doesn't exist to accommodate development plans.
We want land-use and water planning to occur concurrently. Right now we are facing up to $10 billion in unfunded liabililities for schools, flood control, transportation, water infrastructure and other needs. Public officials from cities, county, and state governments need to devise ways for these existing needs to be paid for.
Going forward, future growth needs to pay for itself and not burden existing taxpayers with costs of expensive bonding for pipelines and water infrastructure benefitting future growth as we are paying down existing water debt and have our own existing aging infrastructures to improve.
Whether it is water, land, or money, we envision a sustainable community. We need not make the mistakes we see in other communities throughout the west which are deep in debt trying to accommodate sprawl and face serious water supply problems. It is not to late for us if we act now!
Survey results
Now comes news of the results of this survey showing that nearly two out of three Washoe County residents who vote regularly in county elections agree with us.
If our water sustainability and annexation measures were placed on the November 2008 ballot, the survey concludes we would win these by substantial margins.
Survey survey highlights are:
Some 62% of informed citizens would vote in favor of balancing water and land use planning, while 26% oppose.
59% of informed voters would vote in favor of avoiding leap-frog annexation while 32% oppose. The remainder aren't sure yet.
56% of voters agree that we need to act now to make sure we grow within our means to protect existing residents, ratepayers and the environment.
So who are the Voices for Sustainable Growth in Washoe County?
We are the majority of residents. We hope the two out of three registered voters who agree with us will sign and help circulate our petitions. We are in front of some grocery stores on weekends, at Wild Oats, public meetings, and will be at many major upcoming events such as Cinco de Mayo and Earth Day, and Citizen Advisory Boards.
Drop by PLAN at the corner of Riverside and Vine on the river to sign or circulate petitions.
Pamela E. Galloway
Virginia Foothills NV
Contact (How to) Info:
http://planevada.org/content/blogcategory/75/446/
Initiative Petition - State of Nevada
The People of the County of Washoe do enact as follows:
THE TRUCKEE MEADOWS REGIONAL PLAN SHALL BE AMENDED TO REFLECT AND TO INCLUDE A POLICY OR POLICIES REQUIRING THAT LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAND USE PLANS BE BASED UPON AND IN BALANCE WITH IDENTIFIED AND SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCES AVAILABLE WITHIN WASHOE COUNTY.
DESCRIPTION OF EFFECT
The Truckee Meadows Regional Plan recognizes that the region is “resource constrained” and that water is one of the resources that is constrained; however, no current policies or ordinances are in place at either the regional or local level to make this regional plan provision meaningful. Currently identified water resources within Washoe County with good near-term (20-year) potential availability are estimated at 175,000 acre feet annually – or enough to support a population of approximately 550,000 to 600,000. The current identified TMSA (20-year service area designated for urban development) in the regional plan requires an estimated water demand of 236,000 acre feet annually and the long-term (beyond 20-years) service area requires an estimated service demand of 383,000 acre feet annually. The effect of this initiative – if affirmed – would require the amendment of the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan to reflect and contain policies requiring that future land uses and known potentially available water resources within Washoe County be in balance. By law, the regional policies would have to be adopted within local government master plans and, as applicable, ordinances.
