February has been a very busy time for our elected and appointed city officials.
On February 5th, the City Manager proposed to override the Planning Commission’s decision to reject the State’s proposal to be exempt from the Master Plan downtown policies. On a majority vote of 3:2, the Board agreed with the City Manager and overturned the decision of the Planning Commission. The City was the applicant for this exemption, not the State. February 5th was a hearing to discuss the Planning Commission’s decision.
The root cause for the State’s exemption proposal was the error on page 58 of the Master Plan approved in May, 2025. It said that the City did not have jurisdiction over the State. According to NRS 278.580.3, the State is subject to local zoning laws if the use did not exist as of April 23, 1971. Ms. Hope Sullivan has confirmed this in her memo dated February 26, 2026.
The State took advantage of the city’s error and asked for the exemption from the Master Plan downtown character policies. Who represents the residents of Carson City and Nevada? Will there be any accountability of the serious mistake on page 58 of the approved Master Plan that impacted the residents? Should we expect our city staff to be able to interpret NRS?
Based on the exemption, the Planning Commissioners approved the Special Use Permit for the State project on February 25th. The “campus” or “mall” will look modernistic just like the State Library according to the Architect in the Nevada Appeal article below.
The layout listed four office buildings and two parking garages in phase 1 (a 2032 buildout) and two office buildings, one parking garage and a new mall building in phase 2 (a 2040 buildout).
Another perspective with Ormsby House on the left and a yellow highlighted lot for the new Legislative building and parking structure now under construction. The downtown will be peppered with City and State buildings. Where will be the small businesses that attract residents and tourists to the downtown area?
Over 50 residents opposed this project or asked the Board to revert the decision to the Planning Commission. The Mayor, Supervisors Horton and Schuette voted to expedite the decision on the project so groundbreaking could happen in March 2026.
Two residents submitted public comments to support the state project. One comment said that this area is not downtown. Where does downtown start and where does it end? See page 59 of approved Master Plan which is below.
Another comment said that the jobs would go to Reno without this state building as did the Mayor. This is a consolidation of jobs already in Carson City. It would be cost prohibitive to move 2,500 employees to Reno with complete disruption of the state business. But residents will suffer from traffic congestion downtown. Read the full story at:
The NvAppeal on Saturday, February 28th, newspaper has another article of interest.
The e-edition is on: https://epaper.nevadaappeal.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=c818133f-c3e2-45ca-80ab-a383aa2bca87
On page A3, the article title is City may make developers pay for road maintenance.
Good news? The 1st paragraph states that the “city is developing a policy that would potentially put developers on the hook for the five-year maintenance of new roads”.
This was decided at the Board retreat on February 20th. The life span of new roads is about 30 years. What maintenance should we expect in the first five years if the road was constructed to Carson City road specifications? The City Engineers have to inspect and certify the road before it is added to city roads. Watch for the fine print when Mr. Cooley, Public Works, comes back with an estimate and determines which roads are subject to this five-year maintenance plan of new roads?
The February Build2Win workshop was with Mr. Martel, City Manager.
Public Safety is 48% of the General Fund expenditures followed by the General Government at 26.4%. That is a total of 74.4%. Rest of the city infrastructure is supported by 25.6%The Fire department and Sheriff department are under the Public Safety. It should be separated as the Sheriff’s department is much larger than the Fire Department.
On average, 76.8% is salaries and benefits for the city.
Mr. Martel said that he is beginning discussions with the Board when salaries and benefits will reach 80%, 3 points away from FY 2025. With the addition of 116 staff under Mayor Bagwell, salary increases and the conversion to collective bargaining units, this is imminent.
Four collective bargaining agreements are in negotiations now.
The City is drawing down the ending balance from 13.8% in FY2027 to 10.3% in 2031. It was budgeted at 15.6% in FY2026.Mr. Martel said that 10.3% in 2031 is equal to one month’s of general fund expenditures. The state mandate is 8.3% ending balance which means the growth of expenditures over the years have resulted in why we need an ending balance to be higher than the state mandate.
Mr. Martel is not ready to bring the space requirements before the Board and the public. The talking points have been consolidation of customer facing departments for efficiency. How many times will a resident use the Treasurer’s office and visit the Clerk-Recorder at the same time to justify a $36M new City Hall and yet another parking structure downtown between 5th Street and Musser Street. Is this the highest priority for city expenditures funded by 21% of tax paying property owners and sales taxes. Watch for this discussion at a future Board meeting.Some selected graphs from Mr. Martel’s presentations.
From 2020 to 2025, 115.63 city staff was added after Mayor Bagwell took office in Jan 2021.In 2014, the staff count was 563.61. From 2014 to 2019 under Mayor Crowell, the city added 33.82 staff.
Build2Win did two budget presentations in 2024 and 2025 so the salaries and benefits percentage at 76.8% is not be a surprise to the city CFO or us who follow city affairs.
Mr. Martel mentioned the Strategic Planning survey at: carsoncity.gov/strategicplan
Deadline for this survey is March 23rd. This will drive strategies from 2027 through 2031. Sample questions are:
14. Imagine you have $100 to invest in Carson City’s future. How would you distribute this amount across our six strategic goals for the next five years? Please allocate the dollars below (your total must equal $100).
15. Looking ahead to the next five years, what are the top three areas you would most want the City to prioritize and improve? (Select your top 3)
20. What are you willing to give up or compromise on to achieve community goals?
21. Is there anything else you would like City leaders to know as they plan for the future?
Stay engaged. Only you can save the small city we love. Don’t give it up to people who lived here during their youth and have been traumatized by the rural small town. They want another South Reno or Las Vegas. Please move and leave the small town Carson City to current residents who have chosen to live here, create generational homes for the good things we have now.