Clark County Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting
The Clark County Board of Commissioners recognized Ranger Ray for 25 years of service and discussed concerns regarding data center expansion, judicial appointments, and school traffic safety. The board also approved several consent agenda items and held public hearings on air quality and collective bargaining agreements.
About this meeting
- Government Body
- Clark County Board of Commissioners
- Meeting Type
- Clark County Board Of Commissioners
- Location
- Clark County, NV
- Meeting Date
- July 7, 2026
Transcript
229 sections
Good morning, if everybody would like to take their seats. Good morning, welcome to the Board of County Commissioners. Today is July 7th, 2026. We are going to begin today's meeting with the first item on the agenda, which is to present a proclamation and recognize Ranger Ray for 25 years of outstanding service with the Forest Service Fire Patrol. And I will turn it over to Commissioner Becker.
Oh, you're already up here.
Yeah.
So today it's my honor to recognize Ranger Ray for 25 years of dedicated service to Clark County and the U.S. Forest Service. Since coming to Mount Charleston in 2000, Ray has devoted his career to protecting our forests and keeping our community safe. He's taught more than 100,000 local students about wildfire prevention and forest safety, helping educate generations of young Nevadans. Many of us also know Ray from his appearances on local news, where he's helped keep the public informed about fire restrictions, wildlife, and recreation in the Spring Mountains. Ray has also been there when our community needed him most, responding to emergencies, helping those in need, and serving as a trusted first responder. In 2017, he received the Braun Smokey Award, the nation's highest honor for wildfire prevention. He was only the second person in Nevada to ever receive this award.
Yay.
Ray's dedication, leadership, and passion for public service have made a lasting difference in Clark County. Ranger Ray, on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, thank you for your incredible service. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, and here's to 25 amazing years. I was going to have him say something. Do you want to? You don't have to.
I've really been blessed to be able to work in such a great place as Mount Charleston and all the fantastic people I've got to work with. In addition, we work closely with many of the other agencies, and some of them are Clark County agencies. The relationship we have had with Clark County Fire Department in particular and their staff rural division of all the volunteer departments throughout southern Nevada has been fantastic. More recently we have worked really well with the Mount Charleston Fire Department. They are doing a great job. And I also have to thank the Clark County School District where they allowed me to go to the schools and talk to these 100,000 first and second graders about fire safety. So we have had great relationships with the Clark County agencies and some of the others up at the mountain. Metro, of course, they always do a fantastic job. So once again, I just wanna say thank you, everybody, and I've been blessed to work up at Mount Charleston.
And thank you, Ranger Ray.
We will continue our meeting with the first time set aside for public comment. Individuals wishing to speak on items that are on today's agenda, please come forward at this time. Please state your name for the record and you may speak for up to three minutes. Good morning.
morning commissioner stephanie phillips political affairs director with veterans in politics speaking on item thirty seven i strongly oppose this promote proposed amendment to the resolution because it would allow the board of county commissioners to eliminate the justice of the peace nominating committee and undermine the important role that committee serves in the appointment process under this amendment the board would have the authority to waive the appointment of a nominating committee or any of the procedures established in the June 16, 2015 resolution, and instead fill a judicial vacancy through an undefined alternate process. There are several serious concerns with these proposed changes. First, as written, this amendment effectively gives the board the power to never use a nominating committee again the language allows the board to waive the committee for good cause yet it never defines what good cause means that standard is far too broad and could be interpreted however the board chooses if you're worried about time constraints with a vacated seat before you can have time to convene a nominating committee this is why we have judge pro tems to fill the spot while you're going through the nominating process Second, the amendment allows the board to waive any procedures established under the 2015 resolution. Again, this language is overly broad and grants virtually unlimited discretion without meaningful standards or accountability. Third, the amendment authorizes the board to fill a vacancy through an alternate process, but it provides no explanation of what that process would be. The public deserves to know exactly how judicial appointments would be made before granting any such sweeping authority. The current appointment process was designed to mirror the judicial selection commission. It provides transparency, public participation, and a structured evaluation of qualified applicants. These proposed amendments could eliminate those safeguards entirely. Without a nominating committee, the public may lose the opportunity to provide testimony in support of or opposition to applicants. taxpayers would lose transparency in a process that directly affects our courts. Most importantly, these changes concentrate significant appointment authority in the hands of a few elected officials without adequate checks and balances. Our system of government works best when there are safeguards against the concentration of power. Judicial appointments should be based on an open, transparent, and merit-based process. not one that can be altered or bypassed at the discretion of the board. I respectfully urge each of you to reject these proposed amendments and preserve the integrity, transparency, and accountability of the judicial appointment process. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning. Congratulations, Chairman Neff. Steve Sanson, President of Veterans and Politics International. I respectfully urge you to vote no on agenda item 37. This issue is bigger than who fills the next judicial vacancy. It is about whether this board should weaken the very safeguards it created to protect the integrity of our courts. In 2015, this board adopted a resolution establishing a transparent merit-based process for judicial appointments. That resolution was not an accident. It was adopted because the public deserves confidence that judicial appointments are based on qualifications, not politics. Convenience and personal relationships. This proposed amendment moves in the opposite direction. Under NRS 4.020, the Board has the authority to fill justice court vacancies, but with that authority comes a duty to exercise it fairly, consistently, and transparently. Nothing in Nevada law requires the Board to reduce transparency or eliminate independent review. Nevada has long recognized that open government is fundamental to public confidence. NRS Chapter 241, our open meeting laws, declares that public bodies exist to conduct the people's business openly. The spirit of that law is public participation and accountability, not concentrating discretion behind fewer safeguards. Likewise, Canon 1 of the Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct provides that independent, fair, and impartial judiciary is indispensable to our system of justice. Although the code governs judges, the appointment process should reflect those same principles. Public confidence begins before a judge ever takes the bench. The appearance of fairness is just as important as fairness itself. If the public believes judicial appointments are becoming more political or less transparent, confidence in our court suffers. Once that trust is lost, it is difficult to restore. Every qualified applicant deserves the same opportunity to compete under clear objective standards. Every resident of Clark County deserves the confidence that judicial appointments are made through an open and merit-based process. This board should be strengthening public confidence, not weakening it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, my name is Jeffrey Lustig and I reside at 200 Hoover Avenue in Las Vegas. I'm here today to strongly urge you to vote no on item 37 on your agenda. As some of you may know, I am an attorney in private practice focused on aviation business and governmental matters. I am licensed in three states, in the states of Nevada, Washington, and Arizona, and I have been an active attorney for 30 years. During my career, I served 10 years as a full-time pro to poor judge in district and municipal courts in Washington State. I have also served as a city prosecutor, a United States federal prosecutor, a criminal defense attorney, and a governmental legal advisor in state and county governments. And I have proudly served as a judge advocate staff officer in the United States Air Force for 12 years. In these roles, I have prosecuted cases, defended cases, counseled elected officials, advised business owners and managers, advised military commanders, and served on the bench for thousands and thousands of cases. And I can tell you that I have seen the justice system of many different places, states, cities, and counties from nearly every angle. That's why this current agenda item greatly concerns me. In Nevada, our justice courts are the courts that most ordinary citizens are likely to encounter. For many people, their only direct experience with a judge or in their entire life may be in a justice court in front of a justice of the peace. While sometimes these courts may seem small, they actually handle criminal matters, civil disputes, landlord-tenant cases, protective orders, bail decisions, traffic matters, and issues that touch and concerns people's lives in a very direct way. Because of that, the process of appointing a judge, justice of the peace, should not simply ask, can the board do this? Rather, it should ask, will the public trust the outcome? And to that end, the process must be visibly fair, structured, and credible. The current judicial nominating committee serves that purpose. It gives public confidence that applicants are being reviewed through the process that is open, serious, and based on qualifications. It also protects this board because it helps ensure that the final appointment is not perceived as political, personal or premeditated. As a former appointed judge myself, I believe the proposed amendment moves in the wrong direction. It would allow the process to be waived for an unspecified good cause. It would allow procedures to be bypassed without clearly stating which procedures under what circumstances or what standards it is to proceed. And it would allow some alternative processes without telling the public what process would be used. That kind of uncertainty is exactly what creates distrust. The appearance of fairness matters, judicial independence matters, and public trust matters. For these reasons, I respectfully urge each of you to vote no today to preserve transparency, accountability, and integrity of the justice of the peace replacement and appointment processes. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning.
Matthew Winterhock, W-I-N-T-R-H-A-W-K, 7812 Restless Pines. Clark County needs to stop pretending that data centers on item 50, sorry, data centers, power demand, water use, tax abatement, zoning, substations, transmission lines, gas, diesel, backup, and industrial corridors are all separate issues. They are not separate. They are one machine. And today I'm not asking who knew, I'm saying that the responsibility trail is public. In 2015, Nevada passed in the 78th legislative session Senate Bill 170, creating the major tax abatements in qualifying data centers and related businesses. That bill was also sponsored by Senators Michael Roberson, A. Ron Ford, Mark Lipparelli, and Becky Harris, along with Assembly members at that time, Marilyn Kirkpatrick, John Hambrick, and joint sponsors. Senator Tech Sagerblum also voted yes on this final passage. That matters because Marilyn Kirkpatrick now sits on this board. Tick Segerblum now sits on this board. So when the Clark County acts surprised by the burden, I have to ask, surprised by what? The policy was passed in 2015. The incentives were created. The dinner bell was rung. The counties and cities approved the zoning parcel maps, the easements, the utility corridors, the substations, the water commitments, the development, the agreements, and industrial land use changes that followed that. but they did not build any protections first. They did not require the public to see the full burden first. Before approvals, where was this required disclosure of megawatts peak summer usage and demand? Where were the water source, cooling method, blow down, diesel backup, gas generation, transmission burden, substation burden, emergency response burden, rate payer, exposure, cleanup guarantees, and long-term public costs? Where was that all disclosed to the public before you took these votes? Not a small oversight. That is a hole that this industry drove right through. And whether or not that failure was intentional or negligent or politically convenient, which you might want to check those contributions I have and they line up, Dennis and Carol Troesch were made billionaires by you here inside of Clark County off the backs of you. I want you to understand that your government knows exactly where you are today when you make your performances please continue to show up again to the next planning commission to the next zoning to the next board of county commissions and make sure it has teeth pull up the items file the proper ethical violations against sitting members hold them responsible to their votes they did not recuse themselves i believe they expanded the data center last month i believe So you're here today for an item that's put on for show, for performance. Same thing they did in Reno City Council. They'll probably approve a moratorium that does nothing, because production and development is already continuing until 2032 with everything you've already approved, right? But you don't want to tell them that. And you're also heads of the Water Authority? Funny enough, because Water use efficiency was never given to us. Power use efficiency was never given to us. The impact at which we would feel for 25 to 50 years was not done. Efficiency is not enough. And every one of you were guilty that voted on Senate Bill 170, and I will be coming.
Thank you. We don't clap in these chambers to keep the record clear. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Good morning.
Good morning, board of commissioners. My name is Mingjia Yan, M-I-N-J-I-A-Y-A-N. Speaking on my personal behalf, regarding agenda item number 50, I'm a longtime resident of Southwest Las Vegas, which recently there have been new data centers approved in this area, and I look at the data center issue as a broader conversation about land use and regional planning, which I believe the county commissioner can address these issues at the capacity of the zoning commission. Data centers are inefficient use of our valuable employment land in Clark County. They create relatively few permanent jobs compared to other types of developments such as housing, mixed-use development, office, hospitality, and manufacturing. And we should prioritize land uses that generate long-term economic opportunities for our local residents as our population continues to grow. And we do want opportunities to develop developments that provide more long-term jobs creation here in Clark County. And Clark County should ask the following questions before they approve these data center applications during the zoning commission. Is this the highest and best use of our land here in Clark County? And what is the opportunity cost? Every time when I drive on 215 and I pass by these data centers in the southwest, I look at the land and I say, well, these lands could have been used for mixed-use development, transit-oriented development that generate greater economic return for our community and for Clark County. And would these data centers improve or strain our infrastructure or public services? So these questions should be asked during the zoning commission application process. Data centers generate little economic and community benefits because they don't attract visitors. to come to this area and they don't encourage consumer spending to support our local small businesses, a 50-acre data center may have less economic activity than a small shopping center. So from a zoning and land use perspective, I urge the county to prioritize land uses and developments that generate greater long-term economic and community benefits for our local residents. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning. morning county commissioners my name is aaron harris and i am a volunteer with the sierra club uh... i want to thank you for bring up this conversation today about the uh... importance of looking at these data center impacts uh... however uh... reviewing application requirements is not the same as implementing uh... strict regulations to ensure that the actual behavior of the data centers that come to nevada are meeting the uh... needs that we have in the community uh... we have issues where data centers can be able to use dirty diesel generators, not just for emergency backup but through their daily operations. We don't have regulations in place to ensure that there's air quality impacts to the surrounding neighborhood. We want to ask for a moratorium on data center until we can adopt strong regulations to ensure that we don't allow bad actors in alongside the good actors. We want to ensure that We take a regional approach that all the different municipalities work together to adopt these regulations because we don't want to see jurisdiction shopping and we're fighting to the bottom on who's going to be able to give out or be the most lenient on these regulations. Furthermore, we want to ensure that there is a buffer zone around these data centers that keep them separated from housing as well as wildlife corridors. We know that the amount of heat generated by these data centers, irrespective of whether there's evaporative cooling or not, does have a measurable increase in the surrounding air, the surrounding heat island that is formed around that data center. We've seen in the last 50 years that nighttime temperatures have increased by 10 degrees, and that's largely due to the urban heat island effect. When you talk about, I also want to bring up that these data centers that we're talking about are fundamentally different from those that we were discussing 10 years ago. These are hyperscale data centers. These have a level of computing power that is far beyond anything that was considered in the past. And so that's why we really need to take a look AND TAKE A NEW APPROACH TO HOW WE'RE REGULATING THESE DATA CENTERS TO ENSURE THAT WE ARE MEETING THEM WITH THE APPROPRIATE REGULATIONS BUT ALSO WITH THE APPROPRIATE TEETH AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS. WHEN WE'RE FINDING $100,000 OR MAYBE EVEN A FEW MILLION DOLLARS WHEN These facilities are going against the regulations. That's just the cost of doing business when you have literally hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in capital at your disposal for these centers. And we want to make sure that we are actually collecting enough tax revenue to ensure that not only are we covering the infrastructure burden that these create, but also ensuring that we're keeping our costs low and our grid stable for local residents. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good morning.
Hey guys, good morning, it's me again. If you don't remember me from the switch data center expansion thing that was going on last time, hi, I'm Drake York. My address is 5981 East One Point Place. I just wanna, you know, make a public comment urging for a moratorium on data centers. For starters, nationally and locally, there has been a significant pushback against unchecked data center expansion, mostly due to environmental stuff like water and land usage and housing and heat stuff and that sort of thing. I could talk on and on about the numerous problems that data centers bring to most communities, but I think a lot of my peers are probably already talking about this stuff, so I'll just cover one thing. A short time ago, once again, I just brought this up, you guys approved the expansion of the switch data center. citing the company's willingness to work with the commission on things in their supposed promise to use renewable energy on their own grid. While that's all fine and dandy, there's no telling whether other data center initiatives, especially the one they keep trying to push for like Boulder City, will have that same sort of, once again, supposed environmental consciousness. Nor will it even guarantee that the Switch data center will even stick to their word. Additionally, I find it very alarming that we have not considered regulations on data centers to protect Clark County residents from any major issues like strains on our electrical grid, pollution and heat, which is a thing, by the way. Last time I made a comment, I started by laying out just how much electricity can be used by a single AI data center. And to run it back, according to the International Energy Agency, a typical large cell data center uses an average of 100 megawatts of power. Look, that's as much energy as 100,000 households almost. The implications on that are insane, right? And that could really shake up our already struggling electrical grid. So, I mean, without a moratorium to cover all of the issues that both myself and a lot of the other people who are probably speaking on these moratoriums are bringing up, we're dismissing not only, you know, the people who live here, the Clark County residents, but also all of the major concerns about data centers and their unchecked expansion. So I implore you guys to please consider a moratorium at least until you guys have regulations figured out to protect Clark County residents. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen to me. I appreciate it. Have a great morning, okay? Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning, Board of Commissioners. My name is Tony Chavez. I'm a local community leader, especially in the environmental field. I feel like everybody here today has pretty much said everything I wanted to say, but definitely in full support of a moratorium so that we can protect our community and protect our local Mojave Desert. So again, I urge you guys to please listen to community, and I would like to say, too, thank you, Commissioner Tick Sagerbloom, for adding this to the agenda today so we could talk on this. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning. Unfortunately, this microphone to your left is down today. Okay. Thank you.
For the record, Vinnie Spottleson, 468 Lenox Drive. Thank you, Chairman, for having this discussion. Thank you, Commissioner Seeger-Bloom, for bringing this up, and congratulations to you and Commissioner Gibson. I am the Democratic candidate for Assembly District 41, thanks to many of you, and I am here today to speak on Item 50. there are a lot of things that clark county has done to be in the lead on this issue and i think we should thank you for that definitely the what uh the evaporative cooling moratorium and the requirements for renewable energy are a great start there are certain things that i think we could take further and some of that won't be in your control so i think it is prudent and i think it is necessary to really do a deep dive into this study I think we could get the Office of Sustainability involved. We could look through the last 20 years and what's changed over more recent years and really prepare something for the Nevada legislature to act on. We need to end these abatements. We need to go further with these requirements statewide, not just here in Clark County. And we can take the things that we've started in Clark County even further. If we're gonna build data centers, which I am not for, but after kind of surveying the building trades and the rest of the legislature, I don't think there's gonna be an appetite for just an outright ban on data centers, but I think there will be an appetite for a new regulatory regime. I think that there will be an appetite for eliminating these tax abatements. And so whatever else we need to do, whatever other lessons that have learned and that we can apply into a new regulatory regime in Carson City to go statewide, I would love to see you implement that and I would love to work on that. Just a couple ideas of the types of ways we could take this further. It's good that Switch is using solar energy, but they could be building solar in low-income residential neighborhoods and offsetting those energy uses of those residents in the areas. It's good that they were not doing evaporative cooling, but these companies could be buying and retiring water rights to offset the 1,000 gallons a day of consumptive use that we're still seeing. ideas like that you know and others I would love to see the county really take some time over the next six months year to develop those so that we can act on them in Carson City thank you so much thank you good morning
Good morning, Lena Hovhanessian, L-E-N-N-A, last name H-O-V-A-N-E-S-S-I-A-N, community leader and activist. This is a really important issue that is happening nationwide. And many times when you are in a position of governance and able to make important decisions, you set the bar. And I would say that, you know, when I was watching your meeting on the 17th, I believe it was, is I respect the fact that you have created certain standards such as the evaporative cooling requirement, but I think that we have a golden opportunity here to set the standard. And I would say, challenge you all to say that this is your opportunity. If we're not in positions of power and we don't use that power to set standards and instead we create exceptions or we make it a patchwork and we make it haphazard, we're not really setting the standard. So I would challenge you to say, why don't we take a pause? Take a moratorium and wait. Do the environmental impact report. See how it impacts the community, not only from the environmental perspective, the economic perspective, the noise pollution, the standards that we can create here that could potentially be used nationwide. This conversation is happening at the federal level. And I would say that between the water use issues the land use issues, the critical housing shortage problem that we have. We are about 100,000 housing units short. The cost of energy, the cost of living, are the rest of the people in Clark County going to subsidize NV Energy, the use of these data centers? Is that what we're asking the rest of our people who were to do here in Clark County? who are already cost burdened, who can't afford to buy groceries. And lastly, the tax abatement. Everybody here who owns a home pays property tax. And why are we giving an exception to these huge corporations? And if it's something that's built into the law from before, why don't we take a pause, let it go up to the state legislature, Let the decision be made with our input and then we come back with real regulations and make the issue and raise the standard. That's my challenge to you. I respect all of you, but I think no exceptions. Let's make the rules and let's stand by them and then let's hold them accountable for what they owe to our community here. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning. I'm short. My name is Lori Rubenstein. It's R-U-B-E-N-S-T-E-I-N. And I'm here to speak on item 50. I live up near Lone Mountain. I'm a retired attorney and family law mediator. Commissioners, I appreciate that this board recognizes the need for comprehensive data center regulations. However, you cannot fix the plane while flying it. I urge you to take time to make sure we get it right. Reviewing applications case by case while trying to catch issues and rewrite rules leaves our grid and our neighborhoods vulnerable. A pause on new data center applications will give you time to draft a strict framework that legally protects our water, secures our power grid, and ensures Clark County residents aren't left footing the bill for industrial utility infrastructure. The current application process does not force developers to fund massive substation upgrades, transmission lines, required to power them. This forces local residents to absorb higher utility bills to pay for grid expansions that solely benefit data center operators without economic benefits to citizens. Current municipal zoning codes are outdated and treat data centers like light industrial or houseware uses. Because a data center behaves more like a heavy utility infrastructure plant, drawing continuous megawatts of power 24-7, that application process must be paused until a conditional use permit process is codified. The Southern Nevada Water Authority banned evaporative cooling systems. I understand that newer data centers still put immense pressure on local water resources. Even the closed-loop or air-cooled facilities use millions of gallons, unlike commercial real estate. Data centers return almost zero wastewater. into the system for recycling back to Lake Mead. A moratorium is necessary to update the county code, ensuring that strict protections such as massive setbacks, heat island mitigation, and mandatory sound barriers are hard coded into the law and legally non-negotiable for all future tech applications. I ask you to work with other cities around the country who are successful in meeting the needs of its residents as they address these data center issues. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning. Diane Henry, HENRY, item 50. After just approving a large expansion for switch at your last meeting, it's good you're now discussing the issues with data centers and working on a policy as many other cities and counties across the country have already done. In spite of their claims of almost no water use, last month Channel 13 reported that Switch stated in a previous report that its Las Vegas facility used approximately 340 million gallons of water in 2025. And even with mechanical cooling and new technology, vast amounts of water will still be needed to generate the energy these facilities will require. The power demands and heat generation associated with data centers are substantial. Whether from renewable or traditional sources, the RJ reports that Nevada Energy projects data centers could drive up to 64% of Nevada's entire electricity demand by 2046, skyrocketing from about 5% today. With over 22,000 megawatts of potential new demand, the utility is proposing massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure upgrades to handle the surge. No matter the contributions to that infrastructure by individual data centers, this is going to create an unfair burden on rate payers and the communities where reliable power is currently taken for granted. Please use caution and do not underestimate the resources that even the most efficient data centers require. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning, commissioners. My name is Nancy Olds. I'm an outings leader and a member of the Southern Nevada Group Toyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club. And I have seen Commissioner Tick Seagerbloom, Michael Naft, and Jim Gibson participate in cleanups. And I thank you for doing that, encouraging people to clean up our public lands. We are encouraging every local government, particularly Clark County right now, to adopt a moratorium on new data center approvals until the county can determine how or if data centers should move forward. In some cases where a ban is not possible legally or politically, we are working with local decision makers to adopt policies to prevent harms from data centers from being passed on to our communities. We recognize that across the country, data centers are being located in poor areas and they have huge negative impacts for those surrounding communities. There are still legitimate questions to ask about water quality and quality impacts for closed loop systems. And the energy required to power data centers can be very water consumptive if they aren't being powered by renewables. First of all, data centers should not be near homes or sensitive habitats. We need to ensure the quality of our residential neighborhoods and of our water. There needs to be truthfulness around water and power consumption as well as discharge of used water and binding commitments before data center approvals. Currently, there aren't any adequate regulations preventing data centers from using the most toxic forms of backup generators or requiring data centers to use the diesel generators, they're worse, for genuine emergencies and necessary testing. Data centers should have to take into account whether there would be great stability issues resulting from the data center, which could affect the ability of residents to have adequate heating and air conditioning in our desert environment. Data centers have had to ensure proper fire preparedness in our fire prone city. Data centers pose a unique fire risk that needs appropriate planning and resources. The failure to adopt common sense regulations also affects our economic situation. Anyway, thank you. And I submit our best practices for you guys.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome.
Good morning, chair and commissioners. My name is Erica, E-R-I-K-A Lopez. I'm here regarding item number 14. I'm not nearly as talented as these public speakers, but for the past six years, our company has proudly served Clark County. During this time, we have worked hard to provide quality janitorial services, respond promptly to concerns, and build a positive working relationship with the county. We understand the importance of the inspections and the accountability, and we welcome both. What we are asking for today is fairness, consistency, and due process. I asked the board to consider our entire history with the county, not just the events of the past few months. For nearly six years, our inspection history reflected satisfactory performance with very few failing inspections. I have records documenting that history. It was only recently within a relatively short period of time that we began receiving multiple failing inspections, which ultimately led to this recommendation to terminate our contract. When those concerns arose, we did not ignore them. We did exactly what the county asked us to do. We requested meetings. We followed up repeatedly. We sought guidance and we implemented corrective actions. We addressed every concern brought to our attention because our goal was to improve and continue serving the Clark County. County staff specifically encouraged us to submit written responses and communicate any concerns we had regarding the inspection results. We relied on that process. We submitted detailed responses, documented the inconsistencies we observed, and repeatedly requested additional discussions. Unfortunately, those communications were not meaningfully addressed. Instead of working through the concerns we raised, we were served with a notice of intent to terminate our contract. I also have documentation showing inconsistencies in the inspection process. This contract contains one inspection form, our contract contains one inspection form for all three buildings, yet the different inspection forms have been used during these inspections. The results is inconsistent evaluation standards and makes it difficult for any contractor to clearly understand how performance is being measured. I have copies of those documents available for the board. This is not about avoiding accountability, nor is it about criticizing any individual. We simply believe that a contractor with six years of successful services deserves to be evaluated under a fair, transparent, and consistent process. Our long history demonstrates that we are capable of meeting the county's expectations, and the sudden cluster of failing inspections over a short period is not reflective of the quality of service that we have provided. throughout our relationship with the county. We have acted in good faith every step of the way. We have communicated, requested meetings, we have followed up, we have implemented changes. We did everything the county asked us, but we wanted to continue serving the county. Today, we respectfully ask you to consider our six-year history, our documented efforts to resolve these concerns, and the evidence we have brought before you. We respectfully ask that you vote no on this consideration. Finally, I ask the board to consider the impact of this decision. We have a small local business. Terminating the contract does not simply end our current agreement. It also results in a one-year probation on bidding for future county contracts. Thank you.
And I believe for the record that was item 14.
Yes, item 14.
Thank you.
Yes, thank you.
All right, next speaker, please. Good morning.
Jacqueline Flores with the Nevada Property Rights Alliance. The Nevada Property Rights Alliance is a group of property owners across Nevada and we are in strong opposition to the continued unchecked expansion of data centers and urging you to impose a moratorium on new and expanded data center projects until proper safeguards are in place. Commissioners and staff have repeatedly accepted SWITCH's claims of closed-loop, dry-cooled, recycled wastewater and low water and energy use as subtle facts. This board repeats these claims publicly as if they are verified truths, but the hard data behind them has never been made available to the public or independent third party experts for real scrutiny. Instead, the same talking points are regurgitated meeting after meeting by this board, its staff, and switch. This gives the false impression that switch is somehow the exception. that its projects won't create the same problems other data centers are causing. That is misleading and misinforms the public. The facts tell a different story. NV Energy's own load forecasts show massive new demand from data centers already driving up costs for every rate payer. Switch has already acquired hundreds of acres in Southern Nevada for expansion, including over 300 acres recently in Las Vegas. plus its massive 2,000 acres in the north. Water claims rely on recycled wastewater, yet the 23 currently existing switch data centers in Southern Nevada consume 760 million gallons in 2024 alone, enough for roughly 4,400 households. right now one data center uses as much water as 250 homes switch is part of this growing impact on our strain resources we are not asking you to ban data centers we are asking you for a pause so the county can require full transparent data on energy use water consumption and cumulative impacts, data that independent experts can review and the public can see, data that was missing in the last meeting when you approved their expansion, and data that is still missing today in the documents you made public. Please adopt a moratorium. And thank you to the other property owners for showing up.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hello there, everybody. I thank you in advance for your undivided attention please. Since a lot of the public concern has been spoken I will start with this. You yourselves sons and daughters grandchildren, extended families, and any loved ones with younger generations, along with the rest of the citizens of our state, will all suffer the grave impacts of the current planning of these data centers. Being that this is also new to our ecosystem, I want to see the utmost precaution, as there will very likely be unforeseen issues on top of the already dangerous ones that we have mentioned today. Please take the most care of where this water will be drawn from as well. There are already dangerous low water tables all over Nevada where mining is already imposing existential threat to our water tables. These things need to be considered collectively given that we are experiencing the worst drought in Las Vegas' history. approving more water-intensive data centers is highly irresponsible. We need to prioritize limited water resources for the community and the desert ecosystem, not for large-scale tech projects. I'll just add that I understand it's something that's going to happen regardless. it doesn't need to be on the top of the list of priorities. I also ask, so considered collectively, approving, we need to, yes, I already did that part, okay. Penalties for improper environmental trespasses must cost more than the cost of proper waste management along with outside eyes, not self-appointed or appointed by anyone that would be biased in any way, including background checks of these people that would be appointed to oversee these operations to make sure they are upholding their part. Because we all know there's a history of that not happening. Furthermore, these massive facilities swallow up vast tracts of land, directly consuming acreage that would be preserved for public recreation for all of us and community growth at a time when our supply of usable space is already strictly limited and becoming even more so.
Thank you very much. I apologize, I didn't get your name for the record.
Oh, I am Jolynn Mayers.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good morning, good morning everyone here too. Thank you for taking your time. Does this go up at all? Yes, it does. Hi there, my name is Jasmine Kreutzer. For the record, it's K-R-E-U-T-Z-E-R. My address, I live up in Lone Mountain, 10704 Morning Harbor Avenue. Again, thank you for your time. I'm here talking about item 50. I am stated, I'm 20 years old, a current student at College of Southern Nevada. and I'm here to speak behalf of myself and then also my friends who are here. I think it's important that we take the time to put in a moratorium for data centers because at least for me and I feel like for a lot of people I know, We don't know a lot about them yet, and they have big impacts environmentally, and I think if we take the time to figure out what's best for us, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be here at all, I'm just saying that we should get all the facts first before implementing them. Also, I think that if we take the time for that, we can put our resources and our time in better items, like with Sorry, this is my first time. But I think we can take our time betterly in the education as well as the mental health because we do rank pretty low in both areas for the students here. So I think that's important to take in fact, and that's really all I had to say. So thank you for your time, everybody.
Thank you. Thank you for being here. Good morning. Good morning.
My name is Brian Boushey. I'm here on behalf of Builders United, and I am not going to talk about data centers. This is in response to agenda item number 22. We have submitted a bid protest and a bid protest appeal on this issue, which I'm sure everyone read cover to cover because it was fascinating. But the long and the short of it is we're here to object to approval of agenda item number 22 because Our position is that the Department of Aviation is asking you to approve a bid that is not the lowest responsive responsible bid for this project. Builders United's bid was almost $870,000 lower and the response that we received to our bid protest was that the bid was not responsive and responsible because it lacked one signature on one letter for a DBE. I would submit to the commission that we provided a signed DBE utilization statement, we provided the identification of Veterans Electric as the DBE sub, We confirmed DBE participation on this project of 12.8%, which is more than double of the 5.6 recommendation that was in the RFI, and we provided supporting letters, DBE letters, supporting that position with the bid, one of which was not signed and was submitted late, which was the basis for apparently from the Department of Aviation, the denial of our bid protest. I would submit to the Commission that that is not a valid reason to cost the taxpayers $870,000 of additional funds that could be spent better elsewhere and that The bid should be or the agenda item number 22 should be rejected for that reason alone. However, additionally, we object to the approval of the contract at this time because we submitted a public records request to the county on May 26, 2026. To date, as of July 7th, we have received nothing. We've received no documents, no information as it relates to the bidding process, the approval process. We have not been given any information as to what was reviewed, what was looked at, whether any of the other bidders, including MMC, provided insufficient documentation or letters that were not signed. We would submit that absent that documentation, it is certainly premature for the commission to approve the contract noted in agenda item number 22. and based upon those facts the facts that it's going to cost the county 870 000 more and the fact that the information was not provided to my client in my office in response to a properly served public records request we would respectfully request that agenda item number 22 be rejected and denied thank you thank you good morning
Good morning. For the record, my name is Cleavon Johnson. I am here under a matter that only you are able to hear, so I appreciate your assistance in hearing me today. My name is Cleavon Johnson. I'm here today to address the critical issue that threatens the fabric of our community and the future of our state.
Mr. Johnson, is there an agenda item you're here on?
Yes. Well, it's related to the court system, so I don't know if it's agenda item related.
Okay.
Okay. So it's related to the court system, the fabric of our community, and the future of our state. The systematic tearing apart of the families by our family court system.
I currently... I'm sorry to interrupt you, but if there's not a specific agenda item, our rules require that you speak at the final time set aside for public comment. You mind having a seat and joining us for a little bit?
I wasn't even planning on being here today, so if that's the time that I have, I'll go back in. We're glad you're here. Have a seat. Thank you. All right. Good morning.
Good morning. I'm John Hyatt. I'm here on item 50, data centers. The item or the subject which has not really been brought up and which I think is really critical is what is the end game with data centers? We can generate digital content at an enormous rate and we're doing that almost exponentially. If we don't have an end game here, we're essentially in the position of the proverbial dog chasing its tail. We will never catch up. And I think it's important that we have a discussion, not here just in the county, but the state, the nation. This is kind of a universal problem that really needs to be addressed. And one way to look at this is, is this just high-tech hoarding? If we intend to store all of the data that can be generated forever, we're basically doomed. We will drown in this stuff. And so decisions need to be made about what needs to actually be saved and for how long and how to deal with it. librarians know that they can't save everything. It just doesn't work. And we're in that same position as the librarian now, having to make a decision about what data is worth saving and for how long and what volume can we deal with. And so I very much appreciate that you put this on the agenda. It's a very complicated issue, going to take a lot of discussion, but I think in viewing this as how much can we store and how do we deal with this enormous volume is kind of the key question that needs to be dealt with. Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Ed Yulin, and I wanted to speak on item number 50. Rather than perceiving this as a problem, why don't we perceive it as an opportunity? There are three aspects to the whole industry that's growing so fast of artificial intelligence. And those are the demand for this, which there's no question it's going to be increase incrementally in the future. The second aspect is the data centers that handle the demand Then the third aspect is the energy that's needed to make these data centers operate. So the opportunity for us, for Clark County, for Nevada, is to build the energy in the state that can be provided to this whole southwest area on the land that this requires a confrontation with the federal government that's preventing us from using the land of our own state, believe it or not, for the benefit of the future. Pat Mulroy, the past director of the Water Authority, has presented an idea that could be combined with this. and that is build the energy here, the nuclear plants. We have the only facility in the entire country that's legal for dealing with nuclear waste, building nuclear plants that then provide electricity for California. We trade that for water, and it can be used for a huge solution. This is not a problem. This is a fabulous opportunity.
Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak, please make your way up front now. Mr. King, welcome.
Again, thank you very much, Eric King. I appreciate your leadership and all the work you do to help save lives here. Thank you. I understand from a number of voices that have spoken recently We're talking about a lot of things here that matter greatly. So what are moratoriums, meaning, and what matters now in this moment we have? What does that mean to you all? Who can know? You have fine minds. You didn't get where you are because you don't. People here have spoken, have quality minds, I'm sure, quality hearts, and they've expressed a great many things about water, energy, our desert, and leadership, and the future that you literally are crafting with each of your moments. You choose to pay attention to us, the people who have helped elect you. I cherish all that. I've complimented a couple people in the room here about how they've spoken eloquently, poignantly, and meaningfully. It's really amazing to me how you can feel all of these various sources of data flow, bind it into some sensible meaning, and then have an understanding where you take action upon. That's essentially what people are talking about here about water, which none of us would be here without it. The meadows has provided greatly for us. Hopefully it will continue to do that. It's hard to decide right now how that will flow. But in crafting the future, I'd like to advocate for consideration on some of the touch points I've mentioned earlier today. be considered in more meaningful, structured, and endearing ways to hopefully your hearts and minds such that when we do have data centers here, when we do have AI operating on massive scale compared to what it is not right now, and when people are wondering where jobs went, people are wondering where water went, and people are wondering about what it is that was done to help prevent all that from being any worse than it could have been prevented against being, I'd like for you to please consider what happens with trees here, again advocating for them, In direct relation to these incredible commercial demands of data centers needing to come here, wanting to come here, presenting arguments to come here, and what it means to the citizenry, It cannot be understated enough that the city would not exist if we didn't have greenery around us, and people would not be living today right now if we didn't have enough trees to support their well-being. I've seen homeless people literally surviving under trees. Please consider that with the data centers. And also item 46, please consider the ethics of what that means when people are taking care of public safety. Thank you.
thank you very much this would be the final time final opportunity to speak during this public comment period seeing no one i will close the public comment period good morning mr schiller good morning chairman and commissioners we're going to move to the agenda section your next item is approval of the minutes of the special meeting on may 18th 2026 and the regular meeting on june 2nd 2026.
Mr. Chair, I move to approve our special meeting minutes on May 18th and our regular meeting on June 2nd, 2026.
Thank you. Commissioner McCurdy has made a motion. Please cast your vote. That motion passes.
Commissioners, your next item is approval of the agenda with the inclusion of any emergency items and deletion of any items. Staff is requesting that items number 22 and number 37 under your consent agenda be taken separately. Under item 13, staff is requesting that we delete the language beginning with authorize the CFO or designee to issue renewal notices on an annual basis. And staff is also recommending deletion of item 11.
With those corrections written to the record, I move approval with the agenda.
There's a motion, please cast your vote. The motion passes.
We can now move to the approval of your consent agenda consisting of items number five through 40, numbers 22 and 37 will be taken separately.
With items 22 and 37 taken separately, I move approval of items five through 40.
Thank you, there's a motion, please cast your vote. The motion passes.
We'll now move to item 22, which is to approve the award of project 3092ARFF station improvements at LAS project and authorize the director of aviation to sign the contract contingent upon the contractor providing both a labor and material bond and a performance bond as required by the contract documents. Staff recommends award to MMC Incorporated, the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, or take other action as appropriate.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members of the Commission. John Witucki with the Department of Aviation. This matter is very straightforward. The forms at issue here that were required at the time of bid to ensure the integrity of the process and prevent bid shopping and other post-bid adjustments. Builders United submitted its bid with the required DBE and SBE forms, which were substantially incomplete. The subcontractor forms didn't list the subcontractor's information, were illegible, didn't provide the NIACS codes, and were unsigned. Based on those substantial deficiencies, the department deemed the Builders United bid non-responsive. Therefore, we ask that item number 22 be approved and awarded to the lowest responsive bidder, MMC. Sherry, our DA might have anything to add to that. The documents that Mr. Boshi referenced were submitted four days untimely. The ones that were submitted timely were extremely deficient. I could put them up if you would like to see, otherwise... Please. So this is Builders United, their NGEM acknowledgement form.
Right here, the...
They acknowledged that the forms at issue were due at the time of bid. The DBE forms at issue they acknowledged were provided. They acknowledged that the NIACS codes, which are the codes that are used to identify DBEs, were provided. However, you'll see how deficient the forms are. Here's one of the forms at issue. They provide apparently A1 concrete, but it's fairly illegible. They didn't provide any of the information. They didn't provide the required NIACS codes, and they didn't provide signatures. Here's another one. This is for Veterans Electric. Corporation didn't provide any information about the DBE. The dollar amount, I'm not sure if that's $9,507,000 or if it's $4 million, so it's illegible, and the signature's missing. What they submitted four days untimely are completely different subcontractors with the information corrected and filled out. To allow untimely bid documents that are due at the time of bid, would throw the whole system out of whack and it would, the bid process would be unfair.
Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Seems pretty straightforward. It's a multi-million dollar contract. The expectation is that the bid would be responsive, meaning on time and complete. Any other questions from the board?
Just a comment, Mr. Chair. It's been indicated to us that in the record this morning that our action to affirm the recommendation of the Department of Aviation would cost the taxpayer $800,000 or more. I submit that the derelict way that the materials were submitted in the bid is what exposes the taxpayer to the loss. That's really unfortunate. It's a lot of money. It happens all too frequently, and in this instance, it was clearly avoidable, apparently, except that the name of the contractor apparently is different now than it was when the plans were originally, or the bid was originally submitted. So I'm prepared to make a motion or vote on a motion someone else wants to make. I move approval.
That's the motion. Please cast your vote. The motion passes, thank you.
Commissioners, we can now move to item 37, which is to approve, adopt, and authorize the chair to sign a resolution to amend and restate the resolution creating the Justice of the Peace Nominating Committee to recommend qualified nominees to the Board of County Commissioners for appointment to vacant Justice of the Peace offices adopted on June 16, 2015, to permit the board to waive the appointment of a Justice of the Peace Nominating Committee or any procedures set forth by the resolution when necessary and appropriate.
Commissioner Gibson. Thank you. I ask that this item be placed on the agenda. Let me begin with the set of facts that we're dealing with. In the last year, the chief judge of the Henderson Justice Court, Judge Skifalakwa, submitted a report and a recommendation that we increase the number of judges in that court by one to four justices of the peace. I'll note that historically the population growth that is covered by the area served by the Henderson Justice Court has increased sufficiently that we could have done this based upon what the statutes tell us a long time ago, but we did not. And they've been efficient, they've worked awfully hard. Without regard to any of the things that are in front of us today, but as a factor to be considered, The county and our financial office looked at this and determined that it made sense to increase the number of justices by one. And so we did that. And there is currently there are two candidates that are in a contest to see who is the survivor and who will become the new justice of the peace in the new court that is being created effective the 1st of January. In the meantime, A sitting justice of the peace, one of the three who are currently serving, submitted his notice of resignation. He was going to retire. In fact, he is planning to retire. His original plan was to retire at the end of his term, which would be December 31 this year. As a consequence, when filing opened for candidates, a candidate filed for elections. Turns out that Sam Bateman is that candidate. Sam has been the Justice of the Peace for several years, highly rated, by the way, in terms of how his performance had been judged by those who rank and rate the judges. Sam was the only person who filed for election for that race. At the end of the filing period, The filing period closed with a simple observation, which is there's only one candidate. The primary election has been conducted. Sam was on that ballot, got 100% of the vote. He was the only person on the ballot and expected to take the office January 1. In the meantime, Judge George, who has served ably for many years in the Henderson Justice Court, announced that he had been appointed to the immigration court, and he had determined that rather than retire completely, he would take that opportunity, but that required that he leave office early, that he leave office in August of this year. As a consequence, we have a situation where we will either have pro tems sitting in his seat for four and a half months, or we have the opportunity, now that we have a single candidate who has been elected effectively in the primary election, who is an experienced judge, will not require all the training and all the downtime. We have the opportunity for him to take the seat now. It is my sense that we start out with this notion that we need to add an additional courtroom. And we don't need to staff it with pro tems. Pro tems are effective. They do a good job. We've heard a little bit about the experience of one gentleman today. But operating and managing the calendar of a judge, I'm sure that individual would affirm, is something that needs to happen as early as possible because otherwise you slow things down. The last thing the Henderson Justice Court needs is to slow anything down. So what is proposed is that Mr. Bateman be appointed now, not today. This is not, and let me just apologize, this item should have been noticed on our agenda as a discussion item so that we can, give some direction to staff about where we should go here, but it makes no sense at all to appoint someone, go through the process of appointing someone to serve for four and a half months, nor does it make any sense when we have an opportunity with someone who has already been elected to take the seat in four and a half months to appoint or to empanel a bunch of who are not able to serve every day. These are typically practitioners who look forward to the opportunity to spend a little time on the bench and help out. So it is my hope that we would take action today that is very narrow. The action relates to a case where, and let me read some language to you, when an incumbent justice of the peace vacates the department after the election of his or her successor, now that has all happened, But prior to the start of the elected successor's term, in this case we would appoint the successor to start early and we would suspend the effect of the resolution that describes and directs the activities of the nominating committee. Now I would note that we have a situation currently brewing, where we have at least one and maybe two additional court, Justice Court openings that will occur in the Las Vegas Justice Court, and I think we should immediately begin to empanel the committee and have it function. We're not intending that this is a modification that would be a general modification that would in any way diminish the responsibility that the nominating committee would have nor our use of and the effectiveness of the nominating committee it is rather that we have a very difficult situation people who need to be able to get in front of the court it's not just criminal defendants it is them and we're obliged by federal law and by state law to move those people through the court process expeditiously and to meet deadlines that are required by statute but civil litigants also need to be able to gain access to the courts. It is my view that we should direct staff to initiate, to bring back to us language that would enable this kind of a variation from the typical process so that we can impanel an already elected experienced jurist as quickly as possible in order to avoid more difficulty in the Henderson Justice Court.
And now we know the rest of the story. Thank you, Commissioner Gibson, for laying that out so well. Are there any comments or questions? Commissioner Sagerblum.
I think if this was a belief that we should appoint Judge George to judge, I mean, appoint Sam to Judge George's position to fill out the remainder of the term, I support it.
You know, this is narrow, and we intend nothing that would undermine it. We appreciate the interest that important folks have brought forward. We're very concerned, like they are, that our processes don't get interrupted. This is a situation that is special, unique, and very narrow. And so I would hope that our direction to the to the staff, Mr. Chair, would be to bring something back that would be reflective of what I've just said so that we can make that appointment.
Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Thank you. And that was going to be my next question. So I had questions on number eight, right, because that was the waiver process myself and wanted to know could it be more narrow because we didn't want to give the board the opportunity the opportunity to do that on a regular basis based on four votes versus the process that we've done at least since I've been here. So based on Commissioner Gibson's language, I think that is good. It's narrow in scope and it shouldn't happen too often, right? Because I think this is the first time I've seen that scenario and I've been here in 2015 when we did adopt this back then. So is the thought that it's moving forward based on the proposed amendments or is it coming back? What is the next step I'm asking?
I think based on the board's direction, we'll bring the resolution back for your formal approval based on the language that Commissioner Gibson, narrow the resolution down to a narrow situation.
And then in order to do that appointment that's on the same agenda, a separate agenda, I'm just trying to manage expectations and then what would, in the future, would it just come on an agenda like it did today with the resolution talk about if we should run into that scenario? How does it get back, or does it automatically happen?
So in the future, if you had the same situation again, you wouldn't need to amend your resolution again. You just bring that appointment, noting that you're not doing the nominating committee because of the exception in the resolution. But as far as your other question about, I think that we have either option, it can come back as a resolution at your next meeting with the appointment, or you could do the appointment at the subsequent meeting in August as well, too.
Well, I think if we're trying to make sure that the residents get the service that they've been promised, right, or were obligated to do, then I think it should be a separate item on the agenda, but it should come back next time.
Yeah, my hope would be that we would put the item on two items, right? One would be the modification of the resolution, very narrowly drawn, and then after it has been adopted that we would take action on the appointment.
We'll take that direction and bring the items back to your next meeting.
Thank you.
Very good. Thank you, everybody.
Commissioners, we can now move to the public hearing section of your agenda. Your first item is to conduct a public hearing to approve, adopt, and authorize the director or designee to submit the 2015 Ozone and AAQS Attainment Plan for the Las Vegas Valley-Sirius Non-Attainment Area, Clark County, Nevada to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for review and approval as a revision to the Nevada State Implementation Plan.
Thank you, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning. Thank you for your time today. My name is Ted Lendis, Planning Manager for the Clark County Department of Environment and Sustainability. Before you today, we have a revision, a proposed revision to the Nevada State Implementation Plan relating to the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standard. I think many of you are aware that the standard was strengthened back in 2015, where it was reduced from 75 parts per billion down to 70 parts per billion. That regulatory action put the Las Vegas Valley in violation of the standard, and subsequently in 2018, we were designated non-attainment at the marginal classification. Since then, we've been bumped up, reclassified twice, first to moderate and then afterwards to serious non-attainment, which is our current classification. Today's package is intended to satisfy our Cleaner Act obligation to address our non-attainment classification of serious. So at this point, it's widely understood that much of our ozone emissions stem from sources that are outside of our control. As you can see on the pie chart on the left, Clark County's contribution is approximately 16% of our ozone concentration. You'll also note that international emissions are 19%, And even wildfires, which constitute a small fraction of this pie chart, are very impactful to us. It's very common when wildfire smoke blows through the valley that we will in fact exceed the ozone standard. On the right, you'll note that our 16% is parsed out into various categories, and most notably the internal combustion engine, both in the form of on-road vehicles, which are typically your cars and your trucks and things of that sort, as well as what we refer to as non-road emissions coming from heavy equipment, generators, locomotives, locomotives, things of that sort. So the SIP package before you today is in two parts. The primary part is what we refer to as a conventional SIP demonstration, where we project attainment of the standard by the deadline, which is August of 2027. That relies heavily on removing episodic events associated with wildfire in order to make the demonstrations such that it shows attainment by the deadline next year. We've also included an alternative demonstration which stems from Clean Air Act Section 179B, and that relates to international emissions. In that demonstration, we show that if the EPA takes issue with our attainment demonstration under our primary section of the SIPP, The 179B demonstration will show that we would be able to demonstrate attainment by next year, but for international emissions. So it is a request to EPA to approve the SIP if they feel that our attainment demonstration is not satisfied in some way. So the intent here is to provide the EPA with everything that they need to approve our SIP plan so that we can move forward from there. There is various rulemaking associated with this package, all of which have crossed your desks to include some revisions to what we refer to as some legacy regulations dealing with permitting and definitions, as well as some new controls to reduce emissions. Those are in the form of a coding operations regulation that was promulgated, as well as a contingency measure in the event that we do not attain the standard by next year. And that... reduces emissions from emulsified asphalt, and then finally we had to revisit what we refer to as RACT, reasonably available control technology for all of our major sources again. We did that for the moderate SIP, we had to do it again for the serious SIP. And then the final one there is just a correction to a regulation that was promulgated previously. So next steps, if you all approve and adopt the SIP today, we will package that up, have it submitted to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection by December of this year. the beginning of August, I would say, and then subsequently that package would be submitted to the EPA Region 9 for their official review. Upon receiving it, the EPA has six months to deem the application, deem the SIP package complete, otherwise it will become complete by order of law, and then afterwards they will have 12 months for final action, whether to approve or deny it. Our regulatory deadline, our next regulatory deadline to meet the standard, as I said earlier, is August of 2027. If we fail to attain the standard at that time, we will be facing potentially another bump up to severe non-attainment. That's all I have for you today, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you. Are there questions from the board? I'm sorry, before we do that, this is a public hearing, so I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing period related to item 41. Anyone wishing to speak on this item, please come forward. If you want to step to your left or right.
Yes, my name is Ed Yulin. I just returned from visiting Beijing again. Twenty years ago when we first went there, Beijing was totally covered by smog. And today you go to Beijing and it's like being in a national park. Trees, bushes, everything, parks, every street is lined with trees. and growing and being taken care of and everything else. I see that the major contribution of particles or the problem that we have here is automobile exhaust. And once again, We're in conflict with the federal government, which doesn't permit us to import electric cars from China that cost $15,000, a Tesla-quality electric car in China. is now $15,000. Instead, we're forced to buy gas-consuming cars for $50,000, $70,000, which not only adds to the the pollution here in Las Vegas, but also prevents us from buying other things. Imagine all the cars, the 5 million cars that are sold every year here in the United States for $50,000, $60,000, $70,000. If those could be bought for $20,000, that would mean The consumers, the buyers of these cars, would have $50,000 more to buy other things, which would add to the economy and the employment and everything else, the energy. the benefit of the country. So once again, we're in conflict with federal regulations, and just like the issue with the data centers. So anyway, the solution is so easy, and we have to take the reins and do something. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning. One more time, Vinnie Spottlestone for the record. Sorry, I didn't know this was going to be on here, but I was in Senator Reid's office in 2015 when this all was going down, and Marcy might be able to correct my memory if I'm wrong. But there's obviously a lot we can't control with the emissions in Clark County, with wildfires, with smoke blowing in from California and China. The two things we can control are our emissions from cars and our emissions from power plants. And the ways to bring this attainment down are turn off the natural gas plants during the day and build massive electric powered light rail. The Vegas Loop is simply not at the scale necessary to actually bring these numbers into attainment. But getting light rail on the strip to and from the airport is the type of project that would have those level of impacts. So regardless of the SIP, and, you know, we're talking 10 years of, you know, on again, off again Trump, so I don't even know what's going on over there now. But the point is that as we go through and look at the air quality challenges in Clark County and the things we can control, those are the two areas, whatever the county commission can do, and, again, whatever we can partner with the legislature to do, that's our way out of this.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Again, we are on item 41. If you'll keep your comments tailored to that.
Thank you very much for hearing me. My name is Eric King. In regards to air quality, I have to say, coming at this in a stumbling way, new to me today with the SIP criteria and so forth, obviously Mr. Lendis, other smart people with environmental sustainable concerns paid well by your leadership and government. I think the bottom line when it comes to the quality of life I've advocated for today once again here is with all these pressures, with all greater burning of our world, greater degradation of our forests, our urban forest here truly will have untold amounts of pressure. It's hard for anyone with a fine imagination or else to envision right now, say 20 years out, We don't know what that future looks like for how much smoke blows in here, how much exhaust comes out or what. We'd like to believe that there'll be less of those pressures. Unfortunately, my optimism has been proven wrong many, many times when thinking of well-intentioned people and the futures they create and what we have to live with here in the driest, hottest, most barren, large city environment in our country and one of the most in the world, having traveled a little bit, certainly one of the most in the world. So how does that work for all these regulations and considerations? I'd just like to speak pointedly to having a very limited informativeness of what that means to take out the data and the considerations surrounding that data for how to address environmental factors when we're no longer considered wildfire. Smoke that blows in here and turns our skies orange. i don't know what that answer is i don't know if anybody can meaningfully say for sure what that what that answer is 10 years out 20 years out or more but i do know trees in our urban forest their health their population numbers increasing probably exponentially that maybe is unfair to say but certainly in a more stepped up manner than what i have recently become aware of with master plan adjustments devotedly ask on behalf of our urban forestry and all the benefits it means to our humanity our human lives here and the wildlife please consider that in the equation over the next 12 months in whatever fashion before some final resolution is brought to this and i again thank mr lendis and his staff for all the work they do to help protect our lives and our quality of life thank you for hearing me
Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on item 41? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and turn it over to the board.
If there are no comments, I move for approval.
Thank you. There's a motion.
In support of that motion, might I make a comment? One of the things that we discovered a couple of years ago was the adverse effect on certain days of the forest fires in California, for instance, and we thought we had a defense to the work that the EPA did when they took a look at what the quality of the air shed is. It turns out that we were, I would say, summarily denied consideration by the EPA of our contention that this isn't generated by us and not in our control. So back at that time, I thought we ought to sue, but we didn't. I was outnumbered. But I'm really happy that what we're doing is we're pointing these things out as a going forward concern to see if in another way we might get reconsideration, what I'll call it, of the effects of error that comes here over which we have absolutely no control. We could take away... all of the other vehicles, other than electric vehicles. And on those days, we still would have had a problem. So I think it's important for us to act on all of it. And I really support and intend to vote for the motion that's been made. Thank you.
Thank you. There's a motion, please cast your vote. Motion passes. Thank you.
Commissioners, your next item is to conduct a public hearing and approve and authorize the chair to sign the collective bargaining agreement between Clark County and the District Attorney Investigators Association effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, and extend the same salary and benefit changes to non-union employees not covered by the DAIA collective bargaining agreement.
Good morning, Commissioners. Christina Ramos, Deputy Director of Human Resources. Item 42 is a full contract for a one-year term between the county and the District Attorney and Investigators Association from 7-1 of 2025 through 6-30 of 2026. The cost of the agreement is $375,127. And of the existing agreement, we amended nine articles which impacts 30 positions. With that, I respectfully request your approval of the agreement.
Thank you very much. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak, please come forward. We are on item 42. This is a very narrow item, so comments should be directed closely to it. I'm going to keep you on task, Mr. King. Anything specific to this item?
I have to, excuse me, Eric King, for the record, I have to admit most of what I'm aware of going on with this besides the words on the screen, I have very little to know in forming this of the details of what has or has not been changed and what is extant in the agreement so far being amended. So having said that, I would like to offer from an awareness that I do have with regards to those who care for our public safety, the ethics that they're held to, and so forth. I'd like to ask, please, for, since I have experienced recent network failures in seeking to access the website, including our computers here in the building, to access information on the website countless times in recent days, I would like to ask you acknowledge that my ignorance is currently held to not knowing how to effectively address what my concerns are in regards to the ethics surrounding folks who care for our public safety that includes the da's office i think you're trailing a little bit from the item that's before us if you want to save those comments for the second public comment period we'd be happy to hear you then I will acknowledge that, accept that, and I would just like to add as I go, please, can you consider the ethics behind whatever is in back of the, or whatever is up for your consideration of approval for the collective bargaining agreement as it relates to our populace, thank you.
Thank you. Seeing anyone else wishing to speak on item 42, seeing no one else, I'll close the public hearing and turn it over to the board. There are no comments, I move approval. Thank you, Commissioner. There's a motion for approval. Please cast your vote. The motion passes. Thank you.
Commissioners, your next item is to conduct a public hearing, approve, adopt, and authorize the chair to sign an ordinance to amend Clark County Code Title II, Chapter 2.70, Clark County Office of Sports and Special Events by removing farmers markets and holiday events from the definition of special events by providing an exemption from certain special event requirements for common interest communities by limiting special event fees and providing for other matters properly related thereto. Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, Vince Chiano, Director of Business License and Special Events. The proposed ordinance was proposed to the, introduced at the Board of County Commission meeting on June 16, 2026. The amendment included removal of farmers markets, Nevada, and in addition to Nevada Common Interest Community, which is an HOA. We also removed the following definitions of a special event. holiday event permits, pumpkin patches, Christmas tree sales, haunted houses, and winter wonderlands, and like I mentioned, farmer's market. These types of events are still captured through the business license permitting process to ensure that all the public safety requirements are met. We also added an exemption for events held by a Nevada common interest community pursuant to a use and maintenance agreement for a county park, the term which allows the common interest community to hold community based events at the park at no cost. Although the application fees for special events still remain, we did remove the special event fees, which included fees for each vendor. We also removed the lane closure fees from the ordinance, but they are still collected by Public Works and still remain in the Public Works code. Thank you.
Thank you. This is a public hearing on item 43. Anyone wishing to speak, please come forward.
I'd like to say thank you again. My name is Eric King. Thank you for your leadership and for the leadership considering how to make these types of events more accessible to the public. I have been in support as direct payer to vendors as well as expressed and promoted my support for such events as farmers markets. Love the holiday events we do here too, in particular with the farmers markets. I'd like to ask, please, that when releasing the requirements for such special events as no longer being considered special events such as farmers markets, and that making it more accessible for whatever amount of local food, including that which we call local from California, come to us in a higher quality fashion for those who can afford it. I'd like to consider, please, that possibly funds in some fashion could be directed towards food pantries and other support mechanisms here socially for those disadvantaged folks who do eat out of a lot of cans to supplement their their family's ability to survive and that because we have things like community gardens and so forth here that there be some kind of fabric that's interwoven into the quality of life enhancements that come from populations here having greater access to farmers markets food that comes there and may be thrown away or given to businesses that could be funneled if it's not already to food pantries in a form of fresh food. I've witnessed that personally. I've contributed personally to those things. Unfortunately those mechanisms have gone away because of lack of support and advocacy and so the inner workings I am somewhat familiar with here in the valley of how to structure things more appropriately and would appreciate an audience with your leadership to touch on that along with all the advocacy I do for trees and our quality of life here because food Comes in here, and we don't grow it. 99.9% plus of it. And we throw a lot of it away.
None of that is before us right now. Thank you. Ms. Logsdon, before we go to Commissioner Jones, you had a comment?
Yes, as noted in your agenda item, I just want to read into the record that Section 2, it's amending Section 2.70.070, subsection 3, That language will read, events held by a Nevada common interest community pursuant to a use and maintenance agreement for a county park, the terms of which allow the common interest community to hold community-based events at the park at no cost. So we just wanted to clarify that language, which is also noted in your agenda item.
Thank you. Commissioner Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say thank you to Mr. Keanu and Ms. Williford and the entire team at Business License for working on this. This board put in place the special events process for a reason, and that was to really capture the large special events, make sure that we were providing the special services for them. But unfortunately, it was drawn a little bit broader than we expected. And so this is a great change that will ensure that small operators are not unduly affected and reduce red tape for those operators. So with that, I'll go ahead and move for approval to item 43.
Thank you. Commissioner Jones made a motion for approval. Please cast your vote. That motion passes. Thank you.
Commissioners, we can now move to the business section of your agenda. Your next item is identify emerging issues to be addressed by staff or by the board at future meetings. Receive updates on the activities of the various regional boards and commissions and direct staff accordingly.
Thank you. Are there items for emerging issues? Commissioner Jones.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Often in these roles, we are called upon to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and that's certainly what happened when an operator in Prim announced a few weeks ago that they would be shutting down operations. In the end, there was hope for the best, and with the chair's leadership and our business license team, we're able to work with the brim family and the herbs family to to provide a new operator for that and save the jobs that were out there but i do want to acknowledge that in the interim we were preparing for the worst out there there was a lot of work that was done particularly by our social services team on the ground out there to ensure that if there was a need for relocation and folks who would be kicked out of their existing living arrangements and find new jobs that they were there on the ground to help them. So just wanted to acknowledge Jimmy Sorenson, his leadership and the entire social services team for what they did. And also for Metro and Dieter who did a lot to ensure that there would be an opportunity for security out there and relocation of jobs in the event that a new operator didn't come out there, and also to my team who did a lot to ensure that there was transportation and services there. So thank you to everyone who mobilized on a dime in order to make sure that if there was a new operator that we had services available.
Thank you, Commissioner Jones. I extend my thanks to you and your team as well. You're right, the social service team was very quick to act. And while not all of the resources that were prepared for and made available were needed in the end, I know it gave a lot of relief to people who were impacted greatly that the county was stepping up in a big way with a lot of our partner agencies. So I echo your comments. I just also want to add item 11 was deleted from today's agenda to be brought back. This is an item that I've talked about here before. Essentially what it has to do with is cleanliness on Las Vegas Boulevard. It was the contract for janitorial services. We've talked before that these are dollars that are allocated only for that purpose. It's really important to me that there is a lot of transparency, but also that we are overseeing that contract effectively. i know ms creamer you're already planning to brief the board with public works i think it's important that we each know who is accountable for that contract within the public works department who's going to be the one that we call when things are not being followed to the letter of that contract And given that these are dollars that can be used in this very narrowly tailored purpose, we ought to be using them effectively. And so, you know, three days a week is not enough. That's inadequate for Las Vegas Boulevard and the volume we're getting there. Extending it to seven days a week is important, but I think the whole board ought to have a full understanding of our capabilities under that contract. Thank you. Seeing no one else for emerging issues. Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Can I just ask this when the staff does brief us? It would be helpful to somewhat have a map of where the resort corridor and where those dollars go so that we can see, because there are, I think we've all walked the strip and seen there's pockets of different places where You know, it does get dirty as well as everything. So I'd like to see a map so visually we could see where the little stands are, where the equipment is, and all kinds of different things. Well, also where the private sector is responsible too.
Thank you.
Commissioners your next items to appoint one qualified individual to serve on the Las Vegas Clark County Library District Board of Trustees for the remainder of a four-year term ending March 18th 2029 from the list of the following applicants Desmond black Lizette Gillian Collins Javon Jackson and Jennifer Geron Mr.
Chair move to a point Jennifer Geron to the Las Vegas Clark County Library District Board of Trustees
there's a motion for appointment of mr roan please cast your vote the motion passes your next item is to set the minimum compensation for the clark county constables effective january 4th 2027 or take other action as appropriate
Commissioner Gibson.
Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the compensation as suggested in the backup material and on the item.
Thank you. There's the motion. Please cast your vote. That motion passes.
Commissioners, your next item is to receive a presentation from staff on Clark County Code Title 10 updates and shelter services.
Thank you, Manager Schiller, and welcome. I had asked for this item. It's been about a year since a lot of the significant policy changes we've made to Title X have taken effect, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to hear an update on sort of broad animal welfare issues. Thank you for being here. Absolutely.
Good morning. My name is Victor Zavala. I'm the Code Enforcement Manager overseeing Animal Protection Services. I appreciate your time and having this opportunity to provide some information on what's going on in APS, specifically with what operational changes have taken place and what effect they've had since the Title X changes that the Board passed last year. So for animal protection services, our top priorities are enforcing Title 10, ensuring public safety when it comes to animal related issues and also ensuring that we maintain a high level of animal welfare in our jurisdiction shelter the version is a huge portion of that the fewer animals that enter our shelter the more efficiently they could operate the more proactive they could be and this presentation primarily is going to be about what we've done over the last year to lower those intake numbers at our existing shelter and our plan for the future so back in july 2025 County APS met with City of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and the Animal Foundation, and we came to a consensus. We were gonna reduce the amount of time that our animals spent in the shelter once they made it there. Pre-July 2025, if somebody surrendered their pet to the shelter for whatever reason, the shelter had to hold onto it for at least 24 hours before trying to find a positive pathway for that pet. We reduced that to a no hold. So in 2025, the Animal Foundation took about 4,000 owner surrenders throughout the whole year. So instead of those 4,000 animals being held for 4,000 days, one day each, that's been washed out and they're able to move forward with moving them a little faster. Same thing with our abandonments and our warrant confiscations. So if somebody leaves their pet, abandons an animal, doesn't matter what it is, in their apartment, a house, we have to enter to remove that animal. we would hold that animal for 10 days, whether it gets reclaimed or not. We reduce that to five days. If after five days an owner's not gonna reclaim their animal, then we need to move that dog or that cat or whatever it is out of the shelter. Let's find a positive outcome for it instead of sitting at the shelter for an additional five days. So that's been an enormous change in the amount of animal keeping that the animal shelter has to endure. We think it was really impactful. And again, it was due to that code change back last year. We also adjusted our bite investigations. No longer are we taking every dog that bit somebody to the shelter. If I'm playing with my new puppy at home, it accidentally bites me, scratches my finger while we're playing around, that pet does not need to leave my home and go to a shelter for 10 days. That pet now, with the new code change, could stay at home. We follow up 10 days later. As a rabies control authority, we need to make sure that that dog is not sick, that there's no possibility of myself or anybody that was bitten becoming ill after 10 days we check on the pet everything is good we close out our call and since in the 15 months since that code change we've taken 289 fewer pets these are quarantined bite dogs if there's a dog that bit somebody and it's a public safety issue if we think that the animal is a danger to the community we're going to follow our regular process that dog is going to go through our regular intake process this is meant for those situations where an accident occurred and we don't need to remove a pet from their family mandatory microchipping as of august 4th 2025 all that all dogs and cats over the four months of age must be microchipped on the clark county code incorporated this new mandate into our existing fixed ticket program currently if your dog is not sterilized vaccinated microchipped you're going to get a ticket from us you're also going to get a five week grace period to resolve the issue you're also going to get a coupon from us and you're also going to get information on how to obtain low-cost vet services Our goal is compliance. So since August 4th, we've issued 1,220 fix-it violations pertaining to microchips. So that's 1,200 additional dogs that hopefully will get microchipped, hopefully will make it home in case they ever get out in the future. Since February 2025, APS officers have returned 248 pets to their owners. Of those 248 pets, 204 of those were renewals due to a microchip being implanted with up-to-date information. the national.
Can I ask, part of that policy change when we mandated the microchipping, the revenue that's generated from fines is to be kept with animal welfare rather than going to the county general fund. Are you able to report on revenue that's been brought in to the county and what the county has authorized it for?
So I could get the exact numbers for you.
And maybe that goes for breeding, too.
Yes. So a little later in the presentation, we'll talk about the fact that you're correct. Permit fees, administrative fines that are issued in the field, inspection fees, even our spay and neuter license plate fees all go to a special fund now that's dedicated to the push for sterilization, cutting down on... An animal's going to the shelter. I lost the verbiage right now, but it's in a couple slides, so I'll make sure I touch on that. So again, we know microchips work. They're effective. Not only do they keep pets with their families, but they're also cost effective. Every animal that doesn't need to be housed is an animal that doesn't have to be fed and sheltered and doesn't have to be an expense for the community. After the mandatory microchipping, we implemented a low-cost microchip program. We designated funds to go out and purchase 10,000 microchips. Of those 10,000 microchips, we partnered currently with three vendors, Heaven Can Wait, Hearts Alive Village, and the Nevada SPCA. to uh we provide them with funds so they could go out and provide five dollar microchips to the public our current numbers as of a couple weeks ago are there on the screen in a couple months we're going to go back do a re-evaluation of the year see what needs to be adjusted whether we need to expand our vendors whether we need to adjust how we're pushing the message of the five dollar low-cost microchip But again, with the mandatory microchip requirement, we wanted to give an avenue for the public to be able to come into compliance without too much of a burden on them. We're also planning on the installation of 15 microchip scanning stations in the unincorporated area of Clark County so that Push for microchipping isn't just about my dog having my information so it can make it back home. It's also about the community being aware of it so that the Good Samaritan knows that if they find a dog, they know what to do. They know to locate one of the scanning stations, follow the directions, and hopefully return that animal to their owner without it having to enter our shelter system. We're going to continue focusing on illegal breeders. Since February 2025, we received 365 illegal breeding complaints. It's more or less been the norm over the last few years, but what has changed is our enforcement. Over the last couple years, there's been Title X changes where our minimum fine has gone from $100 to $500 as a minimum. But more importantly, it can also be the advertised sale price of the animal itself. So when we show up to somebody's house because they're selling $5,000 dogs online, me issuing a $100 fine isn't going to stop them. Or even a $500 fine isn't going to stop them. But if I issue them a $5,000 fine per dog that they advertised, that has a little bit more of an effect. And again, this is for those prolific breeders who... have their backyard set up for this. They're doing this, they know what's wrong, we've talked to them, we've already advised them, and they continue. February 2025, we've issued $153,950 in administrative fines just for illegal breeding. We also tightened up our breeder permit accessibility to them. Any prior violations are not gonna get you a breeder's permit, or if you owe fines, outstanding fines, you're not gonna be able to become a licensed breeder in our county. I think one of the most impactful programs that we've had that shows immediate impacts when we use them is our medical voucher program. Too often we send officers out to homes where there's a senior citizen or a family that's struggling to provide medical care for their pet. Maybe they have a geriatric dog or they have a dog that hurt itself just playing with the kids. APS goes out and we enforce Title 10. It's mandatory. You must provide medical care for your pet. You cannot allow your pet to suffer due to not providing it medical. When we show up to those properties, those owners are not preventing their animals from getting medical care maliciously. It's a financial issue. If they could, they would. So instead of us showing up and forcing them to get medical through enforcement, We developed a voucher program through Hearts Alive Village where officers are hanging out vouchers in certain situations where these owners can now go to Hearts Alive Village who, Hearts Alive Village absolutely bends over backwards to provide as much medical care as they can for the funds that we provide them. And if it's something that could be fixed quickly, easily, that pet's gonna stay home. No longer are we gonna try to go out and force them or possibly require them to give up their pet. That's not the purpose of what we're here for. It's also very efficient as far as cutting costs to the department and the county overall. If our officers need to return to a house two, three times to ensure somebody's obtaining medical for their pet, that's costing us hours, labor hours. If we need to go obtain a warrant or if we need to go issue citations or a request for prosecution, those are hours added. If we need to appear in court two months later because somebody didn't provide medical because they just cared for their animals so much and they didn't have the money, that's going to cost labor. So the voucher program is... has been extremely successful. It's also creating that bond between our officers and the community. Our officers love it because the hardest thing for them is showing up to a home and knowing that the owner wants to do good by their pet, but they just can't. They don't have the money for it. Since the launch of the program, we've issued 163 vouchers. In my mind, that's 163 cases that didn't lead to criminal enforcement, 163 cases that possibly didn't lead to somebody having to surrender or give up their pet that they've had for 10, 15 years just because the dog was old and needed a little geriatric care, that type of situation. So very impactful program there. As you mentioned, Commissioner, we did clarify in our Title 10 changes that all fees and fines collected will be held in a special fund for the purpose of reducing overpopulation of animals in the community and shelter, including but not limited to sterilization, microchipping and microchipping scanning equipment. So our fines, our fees, our shelter and boarding fees, our license plate fees, they all go back to that fund. As of right now, we're running three programs with those monies. One is the voucher program that we just talked about, the medical voucher program. The other is Heaven Can Wait, who last, in 2025, sterilized over to almost, just off by a few, almost 12,000 pets, 12,000 animals by funds that we provide them to offset some of their costs. And then our $5 microchip implantation program where we work with Hearts Alive Village, Havin' Can Wait, and also the Nevada SPCA. So those funds are essential for us to continue on with these programs and hopefully expand. We are pursuing moving forward with a secondary shelter here in the valley something i'm very excited about our current situation we had one shelter during certain times of the year during certain situations especially in the years past we've been overcrowded there's a lot of stress on the not just the animals in the shelter but also the shelter workers Buckley over the last year, like I said, with the Title 10 changes, we've gone ahead and made some operational changes to reduce that impact. I believe it's already happening. We're nowhere near in as bad of a position this year as we have in the past. Overcrowded shelters don't work. They create barriers for adoption. You can't adopt, you can't be proactive if you're struggling to keep up with the day-to-day work. They create a risk of a higher disease outbreak. When you have animals crammed cage to cage, you're being susceptible to outbreaks. This new shelter that we are looking forward to, it's gonna do a few things. One, of course, it's gonna take off a little bit of the pressure existing shelter we're going to take some of those animals off their plate the bigger thing in my head in my mind is going to be that it allows our existing shelter to now be more proactive a shelter that's constantly dealing with being overcrowded isn't pursuing a food pantry as much as they should they're not pursuing adoption events as much as they could because they their staff is occupied their staff is tied up in the day-to-day operations a second shelter in our valley is also going to increase access to services So currently if we have an animal control officer in the Southwest Valley and they pick up a dog that is in bad shape because it was hit by car, that officer is going to pick up that animal, rush them to the animal foundation in the Northeast to get medical care. Then they're going to have to come back to their area in the Southwest. That's a 20 minute drive. If you're not in traffic, that's 40 minutes total that we're pulling that officer from that area where It's going to prevent them from responding to other emergency calls, and it's also going to prevent them from utilizing those 40 minutes for something more productive. Again, community outreach is huge. Second, shelter on the other side of the valley is going to increase access to adoptions, volunteer opportunities, and the reclamation of lost pets. If I lose my pet in the southwest, By the time that pet makes it up to the northeast, who knows how many hands change, how many times it changes hands on the way up there, it's gonna be harder for me to reclaim versus if there's a shelter in my area that's five minutes away. I think on the bigger scale, it's also creating this capability to deal with these bigger situations, natural disasters. Last year we had some power outages where we were worried about an increase in holding strand or holding owned animals for people that had no power. a natural disaster, a large-scale impound, we are gonna continue focusing on addressing illegal breeders. If we need to go and confiscate 75, 100 dogs from a house because they're illegal breeders, we wanna know that we have the infrastructure in place where we can house those animals appropriately and ensure that it's not overburdening or causing other issues with just one shelter system.
Could I also just add some clarity on that item as well? I'm sure I'm not the only one who got a lot of feedback on this in the last couple of weeks, but I think it's really important that we are very transparent on the sheltering situation. We, in February, this board allocated $39 million for the Southwest shelter that you just described really well. I think the need for that is crystal clear the geography makes perfect sense when the animal foundation was located where it is today our population was half of what it is now. That is an investment in the future of the county and it is an investment in ourselves because, as you already outlined the cost of transporting animals the. Frankly, the wear on the animal from those long distance commutes is significant. And so having a shelter that is located in the Southwest part of the community that is underserved by shelter capacity, I think is really important. We also went down an exploratory path. We allocated $3 million at that same time to a emergency, what was supposed to be an emergency pop-up shelter located on the Sam Boyd campus. There's been a lot of examination into the prospects for that. That is not moving forward primarily because it wouldn't be in the best interest of the animal. There was no exit strategy for animals there. All of our focus has to be on quickly moving to open a permanent southwest shelter that can focus on fostering and adoption and the welfare of animals that you laid out. Those $3 million that this board has allocated will remain with emergency readiness in the event that there is moment in time where it is of critical importance that we stand up an emergency shelter those funds will be available to do that and that's Kind of I just think we owe it to the community to be very clear about that that 39 million dollar commitment that we made to a Supplemental shelter in the southwest is moving full speed ahead it is soon going to be before us in a land-use capacity and And then we will move forward with building that facility. And I just want the record to be clear on that. Thank you. You were finished. All right. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. I think it's really important that we report out on both the successes and not of the policies that we've taken in the last year. And so I appreciate you doing that. And I would also add that I do think, and we can bring this back as an item, but I do think that those funds that have been brought in need to be spent soon on this problem right uh we don't want to just let that account accumulate i think commissioner kirkpatrick has spoken in the past about spay and neuter programs we've got to do that there's now a funding source to do that and the county can hopefully soon hold an event related to that and mr anderson come on forward maybe you're going to answer that question
Yes, Mr. Chair and Commissioners, Jim Anderson, for the record, with Administrative Services. So those funds have been coming in, being collected through all the methods that Victor mentioned. Those funds are currently being spent, and they are keeping those programs operating at the level that we have been in the past. So right now, we are just able to cover the spay and neuter program, the low-cost spay and neuter program, the medical voucher program.
So it's the vouchers that they're being allocated for currently?
Correct, so we not only purchased microchips, but then we are paying those vendors money out of those funds to administer and implant those microchips and to register them for those folks. So that money is going to that currently. We are putting $20,000 per year into the medical voucher program. and then $180,000 a year into the low-cost spay-neuter program where folks can, so that money's going directly to Heaven Can Wait. The folks who receive a fix-it citation get that voucher, and when they take that into Heaven Can Wait to get their animals altered, then they're paying a lower cost for that, which is offset by those funds. So we're expending all that money that's coming in currently, and we plan to continue. We just we're kind of at a stalemate right now. This is the first year that we're seeing what that fully looks like and We were we were crunching numbers before this budget period and we we have We brought in a little bit more than what we are currently spending annually on those programs, which is which is good news Okay, so there's room to continue those programs Yes, at this point, we're able to continue those programs as we are today.
Thank you. Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I was not gonna say anything, but you piqued my interest, so now I wanna say something. So I wanna understand this. So this is our dollars, right, that we provide for unincorporated Clark County. What are we doing to get more people on board to do more of those spay and neuters? Because here's really what's happening. Every city does a press release that they've given $500,000 to spay and neuter and everybody covers it. But then it's only by zip code, right? So you got to live in a certain zip code to get it. But at the same time, they're using the same vendors that we're using. So now my constituent, who unfortunately for them, lives in unincorporated clerk county is moved back two months so at what point it'd be great if there wasn't so much need that uh we didn't have to find new vendors but i do think that we have to get some more vendors because i love heaven can wait i was with heaven can wait long before anybody was on the sport right but at the same time they get the same they get money we give them money but they're servicing everybody and it's a two to three month wait so in the two to three month wait oh guess what the cat's gonna have kittens and now we got a bigger problem so what are we doing could we call the businesses in the vets in and say hey who's willing to be another partner, right? Because it's not like we're not paying for it, but we need the bodies to do more. That's what I'll say on that note.
Commissioner, to your point, I think that the two big challenges that are facing us with that right now is number one, there's a shortage of vets, veterinarians in Nevada and across the country. So that's the biggest challenge is that a lot of these folks want to expand with their programs, but they cannot hire vets. And the second challenge they face as we talk about spay-neuter-specific clinics is that it's not as glamorous for veterinarians to enter into shelter-type medicine into mass spay and neutering.
But isn't it a state law that they got to? I'm asking. I was going to tell myself I was not going to say a word so we could have an offline conversation, but it is currently the state law in many cases.
Just to chime in, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, we have notified all of these through business licensing, and I think through, Jim, your office. We've sent letters. We've notified them. We have asked for their help. We continue to do that.
Yeah, so the state law requires that owners have their pets spayed and neutered, right? So there's a requirement for that. Our local Title 10 code requires that these veterinarians post signage in each of their offices, notifying them of the requirements. And that's the extent of the law, what's required. It falls upon the actual owners of those animals. And so that is the challenge. We've been talking about that a lot for a long time of trying to figure out other opportunities to get more
low cost spay neuter clinics in the valley Anyone else have anything related to title 10? Thank you very much.
Thank you both Commissioners your next items to receive an update on the status of the grade separated intersection at Tropicana Avenue and University Center Drive and direct staff accordingly
Good morning, commissioners, public works. I'm here to give you an update on our project Tropicana University Center Drive, Great Separation. So the purpose of this project, relieve congestion, improve safety, provide good access from the airport to the resort corridor, to help capacity improvements for Paradise headed southbound, to help capacity for UCD moving northbound, and to help access in and out of Thomas and Mack. The initial proposal that we have for this project roadway improvement for this intersection was to have UCD go directly over Tropicana northbound and to have UCD go over Tropicana westbound underneath Paradise and then surface up at Coval. This project was started sometime in 2018. We designed this to about 30% and the estimated cost that we generated in 2019 was about 78 million. We then took these proposed improvements to University of Nevada Las Vegas and we got some feedback and some of the feedback was that can we look at taking the elevated portion and depressing it. So we took that and we came back with a revised option, which was to depress Tropicana westbound and eastbound below Paradise and University Center Drive. So we did that project design to about 90%, 60% I take it back, and we realized that the cost for that portion was at 165 million in about 2023. So we said, well, what do we do to reduce that construction cost? So we took the depressed portion of Tropicana eastbound and said, we'll bring it at grade and we'll keep the westbound Tropicana depressed all the way from Wilbur to Koval. We took that design to about 90% completion, and in 25, we did a cost upgrade, update, and the cost for that portion of the revised DDI was at $210 million. So we took a pause and said, let's see if there is a benefit to pursuing the current design or do we need to reevaluate and see what's the best viable option to provide for capacity improvements and mobility for this corridor. So we came back with a revised overpass option to reduce some of the impacts that UNLV had brought up in our initial design back in 2018. As you can see here, the revised overpass option is estimated to cost about $97 million. So it's about half the cost of what we are currently, what we have currently designed with the depressed, partially depressed Tropicana option. I'm gonna just show you some exhibits to show you what we did different from the initial overpass that we had for UNLV. The initial overpass, as you can see in this exhibit, shows Thomas and Mack being three-fourths covered. We revised the profile of the overpass to make Thomas and Mack more visible. Here are some other examples of what it will look like to have the overpass constructed. This is driving on the overpass. This is your view as you were headed northbound on University Center Drive. This is another view of you headed further north on University Center Drive. This is a view on the bridge looking at Thomason Mack. So with all these revisions to the revised overpass, we did a cost comparison between the revised overpass and the revised DDI, which is the depressed westbound section of Tropicana and the at-grade section of Tropicana going eastbound. So the benefit really changed. We get much more benefit by going with the revised overpass. The construction cost is about half of what it is for the revised DDI. The construction duration is drastically lower. It's about 24 months. There is really no change with the revised overpass to transit. With the revised DDI, we would have to move bus stops. There is no change to pedestrian access and crosswalk locations today compared to the revised overpass as opposed to the revised DDI. Those would all be revised. The number of bridges to be constructed would be reduced by half, which in turn correlates to the reduction in construction time. We have very little right-of-way that we need to acquire with the revised overpass, and we'd work with the Department of Aviation on that. And really, the visual impacts have been drastically reduced from the initial overpass that we had designed in 2018. The revised overpass really provides and meets the purpose what we've set out to do for this corridor. In addition to this, we've been working on another project in the corridor to alleviate the traffic congestion coming in and out of the airport, and that's Tompkins Avenue. We work with UNLV, as you can see here, we're providing access from the airport to the resort corridor by creating this new alignment of Tompkins Avenue, which will take the road from University Center Drive over Paradise, over the wash to Koval Lane. In working with UNLV, we also provided access to Thomas and Mack, and what you can see there is in the blue. We're just going to design this but not build it at this time to show that alignment is available between the two bridges that we're building for Tompkins to have direct access to Thomas and Mack in the future. Here are a few renderings of what that will look like when it's constructed. This is University Center, this is Tompkins looking east. This is Tompkins looking west when it's constructed. And this is Tompkins. looking north from Paradise, from Tropicana. So to sum it up, at this time we believe the best option that this corridor and this intersection has for relieving congestion and better mobility is to move forward with the revised overpass. If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer those.
Thank you for the presentation. Are there any comments from Commissioner Gibson?
Thank you very much. This has been a real, this hasn't been a labor of love. This has been very difficult. We've briefed on this every single month for years. The objective was always to unload University Center through the airport area, enabling more free-flowing traffic in shortened times between arrival and destination. and movements, of course, to the north and even to the south, but principally to the north. And I am so relieved that we are finally back to something our wallet is big enough to accommodate. You presented to UNLV, and they understand, and my experience with them tells me that they're pleased with the fact that we've kept them aware of what we're doing along the way. If you need direction, it's my expectation that we would direct you to proceed with the final alternative you have presented to us with dispatch because things have only gotten worse in that area. And I don't know if this is really an action item. It more, I would think, is for the Commission to approve what you've done in the general sense and to give you direction to proceed so the project can move, so we can get it budgeted, we can get it scheduled, get it finally designed, and then get the work done.
We appreciate that, Commissioner Gibson. We'll move forward with the revised overpass option and take that design forward.
Mr. Chair. Please. Yeah, I had some, thank you, Mr. Yazadani. I had some process questions for you. I feel like we've had this presentation multiple times. I thought we'd sort of made it a decision years ago, and who knows if this is the final, final, final version of it or not. What process improvements do we need to make in the Public Works Department? And not putting this all on you, obviously UNLV's been very difficult to deal with, et cetera. What process improvements can we put in place in the Department of Public Works to ensure that we get it right sooner in time? Because obviously in the interim from when we presented this many years ago and today, the cost of everything has gone up astronomically. And that is part of the reason why we are essentially value engineering this project years after the fact.
So one of the things we do with all our projects is when we initiate a project, we look at the benefit it provides to doing the project. In this case, because the project has been so intense and it's so many partners involved with DOA, with FAA, UNLV, the timeline in itself has taken about 10 years to get to where we are today. So this is unique in itself, Commissioner, but typically when we get to 60% of a project, from zero percent to 60 were there within six months. Then we are looking to see if there are any enhancements that we need to provide from when we started because development can come through, improvements happen, cost change. So we are constantly looking at that. As far as anything specific, I'm not coming up with anything right now that I can tell you, but we will keep looking and make sure we can streamline that process so we don't re-engineer something that we've taken from zero to 90 and come back to 60 to go back to 100.
Okay. And then one other just request or suggestion is when other departments present here at the County Commission, they provide the digital copy of their presentation. And I know the last presentation by Mr. Cederberg and then this one today, it's very clunky to be putting papers down when you clearly have a digital version of it. So my request would just be for the public and for us that you provide that ahead of time.
Point noted. Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you. If there's no other comments related to this item, you've received direction. Thank you.
Thank you.
Commissioners, your next item is to receive a report from the Office of Traffic Safety on the findings and recommendations of the School Traffic Safety Working Group and direct staff accordingly.
Good afternoon, Chair Naft, Vice Chair McCurdy, members of the Board of County Commissioners. Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Bennett. I have the privilege of serving as your director of the Office of Traffic Safety, and I'm here today to present the final report of the School Traffic Safety Working Group. Just a brief overview of the working group. This was a opportunity to get the region together to find alignment and actionable recommendations to move forward to protect the number of students that are on their way to or from school. It also allowed us the opportunity to have a clear path forward to implement Assembly Bill 6 from the last special session and align our recommendations to the safe system approach. It's important to recognize that every jurisdiction has been working in school traffic safety in the history of the government, and we tried to summarize those up as much as possible in Section 3.2 and 3.3, and I want to thank all the jurisdictions for all the work that they have done getting us to this point. One of the key factors of this report is we are able to report data that we've never really had before. Five years ago, we had no idea how many kids were hit to or from school. With the publication of this report and the work of the CCSDPD, especially Lieutenant Campbell, who's over their traffic division, we now have timely data to be able to look at trends, make actions, and to act on it. So in the report, this is just a summary of some of the information that's provided in the report. But we looked at campuses per jurisdiction, the campus type, and then also the crash mode per jurisdiction, and then overall the crashes by mode as well. You can see that there is a significant portion that is e-devices that is called out in the report. In the report, we also provided crash data related to injury severity, crashes by age, the time of day, and crashes by day of the week. CCSDPD defines these crashes largely as 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with someone under 18 on their way to or from school, and so that's where the data largely reflects. The coalition that we brought together was over 15 partner agencies with 90 people participating. Each one of the jurisdictions was involved. We also had the full cooperation of the school district as well as the State Public Charter School Authority, the Highway Patrol, the DOT, RTC of Southern Nevada, and then the Health District, UMC, NUMV's Transportation Research Center. I also want to take this opportunity to thank County Manager Schiller and Deputy County Manager Kramer for their support, leadership, and guidance throughout this project. With those 90 people, we wanted to break them up into essentially four different groups, education, enforcement, engineering, and policy. Each group was chaired by someone from CCSD as well as a local jurisdiction representative. So for example, the policy group was chaired by Director Joanna Jacob from Clark County, as well as Dr. Waugh when he was with the school district. Enforcement was chaired by LVMPD Traffic and CCSDPD Traffic. We wanted to anchor our approach in the safe systems. Safe systems is the national best standard on how we address traffic safety. And when you look at the guiding principles, it is clear that these apply to school zones. Death and serious injury are unacceptable. Humans make mistakes. Humans are vulnerable. Responsibility is shared. Safety is proactive. and redundancy is crucial. And so in the 75 actions and recommendations that we produced in the document are all represented in that safe systems approach. So we produced in the final report 75 recommendations over those four domains of education, enforcement, engineering, and planning and policy over four timelines. There's immediate recommendations that we would hope to be implemented before or during the 26-27 school year, short term of zero to two years, midterm from two to five years, and long term five years out. That essentially breaks down to 19 immediate, 20 short term, 20 midterm, and 16 long term. Here's a few of the highlights of some of the recommendations broken out by the domain. All 75 are obviously in the report. Again, we appreciate the full cooperation of the school district and the State Public Charter School Authority. There were some gaps that we identified and some immediate actions that we want to take. One of the largest gaps that we identified is a Safe Routes to School program is only available currently in a CCSD school. Working with the State Public Charter School Authority, trying to provide some central resources to the charter schools so that information can go into their schools as well. By design, it was difficult to get private school. We couldn't find necessarily a private school organization to help us communicate it out to all the private schools, but we did have several conversations with them as well. Again, some of these items have been existing, but we wanted to have a regional standard. For example, AB6 allows us the opportunity to extend the use of the school zone flashers, and there was a robust regional conversation about that, and we will be expanding the use of the flashers regionally. Again, Largely, there's other safety initiatives going on right now with the RTC's design of criteria manual, ensuring that we incorporate safe route practices in there so as development comes through and people are working in the school zone, we have that opportunity to adjust that infrastructure. To call out specifically the items that we're looking to implement this school year, either before the school year or during the school year, CCSD has confirmed that they will be doing additional information going to the students multiple times, both to the parents and the students and the staff. We are looking at implementing walking school buses and bike trains. Those are things we've been working on for four years. It looks like they have gotten through the process over there as well. There has always been an incident action plan in CCSD for the first two weeks of school. Traffic safety hasn't necessarily been the priority of that plan, but working with all of the police chiefs and the folks over their traffic bureaus, we have confirmed that there will be an increase in the two weeks of enforcement leading up to after the start of the school year. Again, talking about the flasher timing, adding that additional time, and then also ensuring that we keep track as the plan is implemented across the jurisdictions and reporting back to you all. Again, at the end of the day, this is largely pending on when funding is available for these various projects. We've identified the problem, we've identified some quick and long-term actions, and we hope to monitor and report back as school zone crashes hopefully go down in the near future. So that is the update that I have, and I look forward to taking your questions.
you director bennett are there questions comments commissioner kirkpatrick first i want to tell you thank you because this is a big task to do and i know that uh you've been really going above and beyond on this uh one of the things i didn't see in the report and the full report that you gave us So at the health district, the water district, we have now started creating student generated task force when it comes to media. And it wasn't clear in here. And some of the things that kids have said to us is like, they talk to their peers, they know how to talk to them. And I think us adults think we know how to talk to them. And it's not meshing. So is there an opportunity do we to where the kids can kind of develop the media campaign? And I mean, like a tick tock or YouTube or Instagram, like they talk not it's the little kids are great for pictures. but the older kids have told us, the student council have said, no, we go on TikTok and TikTok tells me everything. So is that conversation happening?
Great question, Commissioner, and I'll take that in two parts. The first one's not going to necessarily answer your question directly, but it talks about student involvement. It was important to us when we talk about walk audits around schools, students weren't participating in those in the past. Those are, as you well know, are defined by state law, and we're looking to increase student participation in those walk audits. When it comes to campaigns and education, We did engage several students through the development of this plan. I think that is something that we need to do more of, and as we are looking to ensure that the education that the school district and the state public charter school authority is offering, we want to make sure that it reaches that intended audience. So I think there is better, there is room for improvement in that area, and I'll make sure that it gets done.
So can I ask this, Mr. Chair, may I follow up? So can I ask this? So by commission district, do we have a group of students that maybe the commissioners can continue to push? I mean, because we do like a big back-to-school newsletter, and if the kids told us what would get their attention, right, then I'm happy to work with kids within my district. Also, on the e-bikes, so let me ask this. There's potential legislation to regulate that. So I'm old, right? So skateboards were a thing when I was a kid, then it went to mopeds, and I feel like we continue to go down this, but I feel like the legislation is not broad enough for the newest and best thing. Because the truth is, I always thought the legislation, I always read it to say, if you go more than this speed, you're not supposed to be on our roadways. And that's the law today. But if we're gonna start calling out specifics, how do we not get ourselves into a situation to where it's the newest and greatest, right? The hoverboard, right? We did that too. So, I mean, how do you make sure that we're always covering it? And I thought the speed limit was kind of what did it.
a great question commissioner and i i think there are gaps that it currently exist in in state law you know the one of the questions i was brought up in the briefings with the commissioners was about the one wheel uh... unicycles the electric unicycles those don't currently have a place necessarily in state law because it's you know there's specific definitions in the full report under section three dot four dot three three There is a recommendation at possible future legislation to look at creating a high-powered throttle device section that's anything that's not a bike, it's not an electric scooter, you need to still have that third definition that exists to kind of be the catch-all for some of these devices that continue to evolve, especially with a legislator that only meets every two years. We need to make sure that we do have that catch-all that's appropriate. So it is page 17. I do encourage feedback. director Jacob was greatly helpful in the development of talking through this we had several conversations with all you during the special session that this might have been contemplated and so we tried getting a consensus I think the notes in here represent a lot of that conversation that we had with each of you as well as with over 90 experts that we had in this working group but I agree with you a short answer
And my last thing would be, I don't know why we would not, and I know we doubled the penalties in school zones, but look, if you're doing 15 and we're citing you for 10 miles over, 25's too fast, right, for an eight, nine year old. And look, I don't know, I would be more interested in citing the parents that double park, because they're the bigger issue, because you can't see the kids. And I don't know that that works, which is why I support one-way schools areas because then there's no, but the triple parking, all of that, that's almost worse than the speeding because the kids know to watch out for cars today, but it's the dashing in between. And that's just how they move around, right? With your walk audits would tell you that every middle school kid is not going to the crosswalk.
Great question and great, you know the the U-turns did make it in here as the recommendation for the one-way as well as Director Jacob might be able to correct me if I phone a friend double Parking was addressed in the double penalties It was something that we had a robust conversation about during the special session with some of the other County departments But I believe parking was addressed as a double penalty because of the danger that it exists especially with parking in a bike lane as well. Commissioner Jones.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Director Bennett, for the tremendous amount of work that went into this. I appreciated that it was very data-driven in terms of the recommendations, and it's going to be data-driven as to the continued implementation. And I would just suggest that our county-appointed trustee, Lisa Satori, be very actively engaged in that because of the crossover between our jurisdiction and CCSD.
Thank you, Commissioner. I did fail to mention, this report is going before the school board, and I have worked with our appointed trustee to keep her in the loop as we move forward as well, but we are going before the full school board as well, and I believe the first meeting of August.
Any other comments for Director Bennett? I would just add, this was a big effort, and I think you know I've been impatient over the last year trying to get to this point. I'm grateful for it. I think we've talked a lot today, and you've talked a lot about collaboration, data, the regional effort that took place here. sometimes we take those things for granted especially when we have a whole bunch of territorial organizations who are all difficult to work together but on an issue that is to me significant for quality of life in this community you have wrangled a whole lot of people to get to 75 recommendations which I think are you know all valuable Commissioner Kirkpatrick and others have talked a little bit about e-scooters with the 50% increase in crashes related to e-scooters, 143 crashes last year on e-devices. That has got to be a priority, and I know it is for you and a lot of your colleagues who put the time into this report. We have got to address it in the legislature. There's got to be a uniformed approach. So I would advocate aggressively to work with our colleagues to get something done that protects, you know, Commissioner Kirkpatrick said the eight year old. That's right. That's unconscionable that eight year olds are getting seriously injured. on e-device crashes. We all have to do something about it. But what I want to make sure of is that the items that are here as recommendations, particularly those that require or are tagged as immediate, some of that is in your control. A lot of it is in our control. Not all of it is in any of our one control. And so I need to get to a point where we can get you back here, hopefully, you know, I would suggest 30 days after the start of school. I think that would be September 15th or 16th will be in session. And hopefully see some of those things crossed off and checked off. And if they're not, there's got to be some accountability to the departments who should be taking this document as direction, unless anyone wants to correct that, to get them done. So I don't care if it's things that we always do, we always do well, that's great, come back and show me how many crosswalks we painted during summertime, how many signs have we fixed or replaced, what schools we've audited, all of that data should be available and we have to hold people accountable to bring it back to us. Is that something that you can, under Deputy Manager Cramer's direction, you two can help make sure that all of the departments that are within our control understand that this is direction being taken by the board and bring that document back in September so we know what happened and what didn't? absolutely commissioner okay um and then i think we you know you've laid it out really well with immediate longer term solutions and recommendations while we focus on the immediate we have to also keep our eye and the ball on those long-term solutions so i know i know you will do that but please continue to keep the board briefed because you of everything we talk about is important here. This is life and death. We actually now have a document that highlights the solution to this crisis we're facing, and we have got to start following the guidance that you've laid out. County Manager Schiller, that's all clear for your direction.
Yes, it is, and I only want to add to Mr. Bennett and our shout-out for our regional leadership in this. I think wrangling the many stakeholders in this process, I think you highlighted it. We have a plan. Now we have to execute on the plan, but I also think that I wanted to make sure I highlighted that because I know it's no small task.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Commissioners your next item is to discuss the application process and approval criteria for Dana centers in unincorporated Clark County and direct staff accordingly Commissioner Sager boom Thank you so much.
Mr County manager I asked to put this on the agenda after the discussion we had a couple weeks ago with switch and a lot of the items that came up in that conversation I wasn't sure if we actually can regulate. So I wanted to put it on for a discussion. If we were in the legislature, we would just go in the back room and talk about this. But because we can't do that, we have to kind of do it openly. But I know water's an issue. I think we've addressed that locally. I know power's an issue, sound. And I'm not sure if through land use alone we're allowed to do that. So anyway, I just put it on the agenda to see if maybe we could push it out to staff and ask for input from them, look around the country, talk to the legislature, see what they're talking about doing, but just really have a discussion item, because it seems like there's a lot of fear out there, and if, anyway, I just think it's worth discussion, so having said that, I would throw it out there.
Oh, sorry. Commissioner Kirkpatrick. Expecting Maryland to respond. Consider it thrown.
No, I was just going to say that I have talked to some legislators on both sides of the aisle and they are looking at the abatements, which is one thing that was brought up today. So I think both sides of North and South and Eastern are talking about the abatements. I do think that maybe I could go back at the Water District and actually get some harder data to show that this is why we believe it's not a drain on our system, because it goes back into our system. So I'm happy. And I think that we have some numbers, Commissioner Knapdright, to show that. And I would ask Lisa, because I just think that, and you don't have to give it the answer today, I just think that some of that land is not developable for housing or other things. because of where it sits, right? And so, good for that.
Yeah, Commissioner Jones.
Yeah, I just say, with my hat on as local government rep on the Legislative Committee on Public Lands, As we've gone around the state, this has come up. A lot of the other counties have presented before the board. Our county will be presenting at the next public lands meeting. Many of them have talked about putting in some moratorium, some regulations on data centers and also on solar facilities because they kind of interact in some of the more rural counties. So perhaps NACO local and NACO national can give us some information about what's working and what isn't.
And I guess I would just say for my part, I think that's right. I think we can go down this journey, and we ought to. We heard a lot of testimony on it, all questions that we have raised, in fact, before the approval of the land use application that was before us. I did ask all of our department heads that have relevant oversight over it to weigh in. We got feedback from water. We got feedback from water reclamation. We got feedback from others who we have oversight of. And I also do think, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, your point is right, as it relates to that specific land use application, and I said at the time, I don't think that stands as a policy across the board, but water, power, land use uh... things that are in our capacity uh... were important were discussed as it relates to that item does that mean it's applicable across the board no there's i'm sure good actors and bad actors as commissioner becker said at the time uh... and so commissioner sigelblum i think what you're getting at is how do we regulate the bad actors who aren't doing this uh... appropriately in our drain on our resources and you know i don't know if you have a recommendation for what you're looking for to come back with or commissioner mccurdy or
No, I agree with everything that's been said. Clearly, this is an issue of significance for here in our region. To me, I believe that we should look for a uniform standard of what we would require of those looking to construct data centers here within our valley. I understand, based upon some of the information I've been provided and also independent research, that this is going to be Herculean effort, which is going to require us to talk to all the regional stakeholders as well as the western region stakeholders as well, coming to a place where we can actually identify a standardized policy that we can put in place to hold folks who are looking to come to our valley to also while realizing the significance of data centers in our everyday lives. It's more than just cloud computing and medical record retention and all these other very, very significant areas that they cover, but what is it gonna mean for us in our everyday lives as well? So I think we have to look at it at a holistic approach and get all the information so we can also make informed decisions as we approve and look to approve good actors in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The item we met on and approved the other day was really significant in lots of ways. I did a lot of reading, a lot of research on what is happening in other jurisdictions, and I really think that we're far and away ahead of the game. We're not all the way there. I think we're the first to acknowledge that. But the things that we've done, our conservation plan, which is area-wide, it's a county-wide conservation plan drew attention to water well before it was fashionable. And we have been enforcing it. And it is really tough. I mean, when you take a look at the alternatives and the effects on business and industry and our lives, we hear about the water issues every single time we meet. We're all experiencing those same things, but when you get right down to it, there are so many drops available to us. And I would say that today we probably have come as close to the gold standard of approval of something like a data center, in particular a data center, Because of the way that we look at the cost of the rate payer, as a state, a decade, more than a decade ago, the PUC and the legislature and industry took a hard look at whether or not the franchise agreement with NV Energy was exclusive. And a portion of the exclusivity was written out of it. so that business and industry could go out into the market and find a resource that would not be something that they would actually get from Envy Energy. The cost of bringing that in is something that is borne by the applicant. The cost of upgrading lines or building power lines is something that is on their nickel. All of that is stuff that is happening because of some awfully good decisions not the complete decision but awfully good decisions that have been made over more than a decade i think that it's critical to us that we keep looking and we keep searching for improvements that we can make to the process and i think it's only fair to the industry that they know when they come here what they're faced with and the only way to do that is to incorporate into our processes with notice to those who would seek approval precisely what we're going to expect of them. To the extent that those are things that are within our power, we need to do them. And there is more to be done. So I'm happy the item's on. We did not hear something we didn't expect today from the public. All of us are concerned, and we need to keep it up. And not just do it, but do it as fast as we possibly can. Stay as current as we possibly can. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, if possible, I'd like to work with Commissioner Segerblum on this. Again, thank you for bringing it forward. And once we identify all of the stakeholders that we will need to speak with, including scholars, Desert Research Institute and others, if we can, as commissioners, get individual briefings, or if two of us at a time can meet to get some of the information together and really have a thorough understanding of the impacts and also how it's gonna look in our valley moving forward.
Commissioner Becker?
Just regarding last meeting and what actually came before us, I just want for the record to express that it has been reported inaccurately. What came before us was a waiver for configuration of a driveway. When it's reported that we've expanded data centers and we've approved them, That's not what happened. And I think that when this is the way it's reported, it upsets people, and rightfully so, because they think that we're doing something against what the public wants, and that's just simply not what happened in our last meeting. We looked at waivers for landscaping around the facility. They requested that the current zoning be more restrictive, which we never see, and we're always probably going to grant. It limits the amount of noise that can be produced in that area, they didn't have to come to us to build what they wanted. It's already zoned for that. So what they came here to do, mainly, was a reconfiguration of their driveway. So I just wish that when people read things that are put out by different sources, whether it be the news, whether it be on social media. They just look at what's actually being done. Because I post all of this on my social media. It's also available on the county website. Just read what's coming before us before you get mad. Personally, I'm happy that it came up because I think that we need to look at what's coming at us We've had data centers here since I believe before 2000, so 2026. Been here for a while. If the public wants us to start looking at what actually is being built and what is occurring, I think that's a great thing. And I'm open to help and participate in any type of research, regulations, It's obviously something that's important to the public, so I do think that's our job to recognize what people are coming to us with and do what we can to address it, but also hopefully the public realizes that what we can do is limited. A lot of these issues need to be addressed by the legislature.
Mr. Chair, I just want to note one. There had been a couple of public comments about our master planning process, and I understand there are new people to this, and it's great to hear from new voices here. We're excited about that. Just to be clear, though, we did go through a three-year process of updating our master plan recently. It was about as transparent a process as you can be. Transform Clark County, led by our Comprehensive Planning Department, and with a lot of input from our Department of Environment and Sustainability, put in place a new comprehensive plan and new development code two years ago, and many of those from Sierra Club, for example, were actively engaged in those discussions. So as it relates to data centers, not new, but also lots of understandable concerns publicly, but certainly from a land use comprehensive plan perspective, it's been about as transparent a process as you can have.
Thank you. Commissioner Segerblum, you want to tie it up for us? Is that direction?
Yes, what I interpreted is it's obviously part of our process as it exists currently. Commissioner Naft, you highlighted different departments and different pieces and we have a process for that. We'll evaluate Title 30 in conjunction with policy and look at some of those things and try to bring some options back. Thank you.
If you could also, if I could also just ask the staff to look at things that legislation might be required and we could talk to NACO about that and work with our Our legislators.
Thank you. I'd say Vice Chair McCurdy offered to take lead on it. I appreciate that. But in doing that, I would just recommend, I had asked for in the last couple weeks each of our departments to weigh in. We could, through the manager, we'll share that with everybody because I think there's some valuable input here too. All right, that concludes item 50. That brings us to the final time set aside for public comment. Anyone wishing to speak, please come forward at this time, state your name for the record, and you may speak for up to three minutes.
Mr. Chair, I need to excuse myself. I agreed months ago to be on a panel at 115, and I'll be tight together.
You're doing your duty. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here.
Hello, my name is Shoshana. I'm a resident, and I'd like to urge the commission once again to stop the praying, the invocations at these public meetings, because this is not a church. I will remind you why I'm here. Every time I tell you that I read the Bible, and I hope people would actually read it, it's gruesome. The source of our invocations have to do with this book right here. It talks about dashing babies against rocks, boiling and eating them. It talks about eating the flesh of your sons and daughters. The father shall eat the sons and the sons shall eat the fathers. God sent a bear to kill 42 children. He also ordered the murdering of firstborn children. Starving the children, you ask for bread. Eat the fruit of the womb and eat the flesh of your sons and daughters. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring. This is what we are talking about, why I don't want this in this chamber. Your God will afflict the daughters with scabs on their heads and show their secret parts. 200 men are killed for their foreskins, the tips of their penises. Put a sword to all the men in the city. We struck them until no one was left. Do not leave anything alive that breathes. Completely destroy them. Again, this is all in your Bible. Please just Google it. Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling. Destroy all the people with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was not anyone left to breathe. I will bring evil upon them, which they cannot escape." Take every girl who has never slept with a man and do with her what you want, that is rape. A woman was gang raped until she was dead and her body was cut up into 12 pieces. A sister is raped by her brother. A drunk father rapes his two sisters and blames his daughters after God had turned their mother into salt, a form of sorcery. Killing of animals is mentioned about 200 times, the killing of cattle, sheep, donkeys, camels, rams, oxen, goats, and lambs to give to the Lord. I urge the commission to stop using these chambers as a house of worship. This is not a church. Please stop having us revere a Bible, the source of our invocations that is filled with the most gruesome things that I've mentioned, that has been done to animals, men, women, pregnant women, children, and babies. Oh yeah, cutting a woman open in her womb. I forgot to mention that one. There are over 1,000 churches for people who support this evil, the murder, the rape, the incest, the slavery, the torture and sorcery. You can still believe this if you want, but it's time to end the invocations here. Honor the separation of church and state. 70% of cities and counties in Nevada don't use these meetings for church services, and it's time for us to do the same. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, commissioners, Stephanie Phillips. On May 19th, 2026, you allowed a so-called invocation to be given by someone from the Satanic Temple. It was no invocation. It was merely a propaganda speech which ended by saying hail Satan. This person even wore devil's horns on his head as if he was attending a Halloween party. It was a complete mockery of these proceedings. The community's backlash on this board for allowing that to take place in this chamber was more than warranted. Only one of you stepped out while the so-called invocation was being given. I admire and respect you, Commissioner Becker, for not participating in such a disgraceful display of what was supposed to be a prayer. The Clark County Commission should preserve invocations that reflect the foundational moral traditions and share civic values of the overwhelming majority of the community it serves. Public invocations have historically been intended to encourage humility, promote unity, and seek wisdom for public servants. Many residents believe Satanism, whether symbolic or literal, represents values that are fundamentally inconsistent with the moral and spiritual traditions upon which American civic culture has long been built. The concern is not about denying anyone constitutional rights or freedom of private worship. All citizens retain full First Amendment protections. Rather, the issue is whether a government body should voluntarily associate an official civic ceremony with a belief system that many constituents view as openly antagonistic of faith religious heritage, and community values. One of their tenants is the ongoing struggle for justice and the necessary pursuit thereof should prevail over laws and institutions. Think about that for just a second. The Supreme Court has recognized that ceremonial prayer and invocations are deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition. Historically, those invocations have generally reflected faith traditions intended to unify communities rather than provoke division or controversy. After all, we live in a Christian nation of which it was founded upon. In God we trust is printed on our currency for a reason. One nation under God is in our pledge of allegiance for a reason. Clark County, shut up! Clark County commissioners have a responsibility to maintain decorum, public trust, and civic cohesion. Allowing an invocation associated with Satanism could reasonably be viewed by many residents as offensive and contrary to the purpose of an opening invocation itself. It was shameful, disrespectful, and I hope it never happens again. In the Bible it says, God shall not be mocked, and that day he surely was. I am here to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ in these chambers to cover this place with his hand of cleansing and divine protection. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next speaker.
Tim Ross, 2537 Dayspring Street, and I'm the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association representative for North Las Vegas Airport. Good morning, Commissioners. Over the last few weeks, we've heard a lot about life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, all leading up to Independence Day. These are ideals protected by our nation's veterans. Right now, over one-third of the hangar owners at North Las Vegas are veterans. Some have reached the age and medical condition where they'd like to sell their hangar, and they cannot. They cannot because the CCDOA refused to issue long-term land leases so far. Buyers are ready, but they won't pull the trigger until we have a long-term lease so they're secure in their purchase. We've all been rooting for the success of Mr. Jim Chrisley. We expected him to resolve this issue long ago. Recently, we held a hanger owners meeting where Mr. Chrisley told us directly, I have no intention of taking your hangers. In the same meeting, we were informed that he has hired a consultant for $106,000 to create a reversion policy. Let's talk about what that is. A reversion policy, according to the FAA, is a mechanism where ownership of private property, like an airplane hangar, reverts back to the airport. So, in one hand, he's saying we're not going to take your hangars, as he's hiring someone to take the hangars. So Mr. Chrisley is telling us he won't take it, but he will take them. We need someone managing our airport system who takes care of business of the people, not political connections. If these lane leases are not completed and delivered by the end of August, I will return to this chamber with a formal petition demanding Mr. Chrisley's termination. Some people told me, you can't go before the commission and say you want someone terminated. They'll just laugh about that. Well, I don't think someone not doing their job and wasting the community's money is funny. The same thing happened in Washoe County, and they faced the same gridlock. They terminated their director and got the aviation land leases completed. We might need to do the same thing here, depending on if we have these land leases by the end of August. Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
Man, I think I'm the harshest critic for about 17 counties worth of county commissioners in about every government office inside here, but you wanna know why? My name is Matthew Winterhawk, W-I-N-T-E-R-H-A-W-K for the record. We do not inherit this land from our parents. Many of you think that. We borrow it from our children. And more importantly, many of you on this board probably have grandchildren. But you know, I spent a great deal of time across these counties over 17 months inside working endlessly. I drove, left the $220 room from Reno to be here today because I believe speaking publicly on the record is important. No matter how many people have been disenfranchised by the boards, over 316 board advisories and committees across the state, whether they go remotely, they go using TTY assistance or disabled, they walk away with the same resounding stories to me. Those people made up their minds before they even came out here to listen to what we had to say. 99% of what they said has already been dealt in back rooms, legislative deals. You can see the corroboration between their political campaign contributions. I've seen it. I've seen it. It is undeniable you did not recuse yourself as many of the others did across the counties, across all 17 counties inside this state. So I'd like to say that one day you will have to meet with your maker, and when you do, I hope that you've done something in between here and this statement that I'm making you today to redeem yourself. Because as it stands, you have all condemned this entire area for over 50 years, much like the mining industry and the agriculture did to Lyon County while everyone is dying from tumors, cancers, autoimmune diseases, leukemia in their kids while they bust a beer with each other on a Friday night with an F cancer sticker on the back knowing full well their decisions are what made it happen. There's no such thing as balance. People come before profits every day. And service does not end or begin with an election. You may mock, you may joke. 3,452 votes. It matters. Every one of them. Every one of the Nevadans that you serve matters. Remember that.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for being patient.
Thank you, thank you. Again, for the record, my name is Cleavon Johnson. I appreciate your chair and board providing me the opportunity to exercise my First Amendment rights, which the courts have denied. I am here today to address a critical issue that threatens the fabric of our community and the future of our state, the systematic tearing apart of families by our family court system. I currently have an active civil appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court, docket number 91520. My experience with the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court has been marked by a profound abuse of judicial discretion and denial of basic constitutional rights. While attempting to be a model citizen, I have been subject to hostile treatment throughout these court proceedings. My children have been forcefully removed from my home despite me having no criminal history or convictions. I am forced to go to a detention facility center every week just to see my children so that the courts are able to get paid. Even the limited two hours of visitation we are granted is being compromised. Just this weekend, a staff member at the Donna's House facility actively infringed upon my children's right to spend time outside, causing my daughter to cry. When I simply asked for the supervisor's name, a reasonable request considering that she has access to all my personal information, she stopped our visit entirely and called the Sheriff's Department. I captured this entire interaction on video and plainly demonstrates the disturbing pattern of misconduct and complete lack of due process. The disregard of rules of evidence and the disparagement of families within our court system must be stopped. Breaking up families in this manner damages the social and economic future of Nevada. I urge our state leadership and our community to look closely at the Supreme Court case 91520 as a clear example of how political interference in family affairs is devastating to Nevada. I am not here to defame anyone who currently holds a position. I'm simply just letting the state know about a systematic issue with the courts and the disparaging, disgusting nature within my case.
That's my time. Thank you. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. My name is Jose Gonzalez, J-O-S-E, G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-Z. I am a member of local union IVW 357 electricians, also a member of Southern Nevada Building Trades. I'm here to speak a little bit, touch a little bit on the data center. I believe it was 50 and so on and so forth. Just a reminder, all the folks in here, everyone, When these data centers get built, let's keep in mind that it would be ideal for it to be local hands, local jobs, local unions, local economy. We have more than enough people in all the trades to build anything and everything in this great state of Nevada. God bless our country. God bless our union. God bless everyone in here.
Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is kind of addressed to Ms. Becker. This is regarding Lone Mountain Park.
If you could just address your rules, your comments to the full board.
This is regarding Lone Mountain Park. I walk the park along with dozens, if not hundreds of people every morning, and Parks and Recreation Department does not do their job All I ask empty the garbage cans after the 4th of July and before the 4th of July all the garbage cans are overflowing They can't empty them Today they still overflowing and then the other thing I asked they have the horse park all the horses walk around and the dogs walk around and Nobody cleans up after the mess. I clean it up. Every morning, I walk around with a rake and push it off to the side. People are making good money. They should be able to clean up the park. And it's no disrespect to the commissioner to the left of me, but when you asked for my vote and I addressed these comments to you, you said that you would look after it and take care of the park. And I think the park be expanded. I think more walking trails should be expanded around there, and I think it could be done very inexpensively with the works of all your public work equipment. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
Hello again. I'm definitely gonna stutter over my words this time. Anyway, there's a few things I didn't get to say. And my phone died. JoLynn Mayers. I wanted to just complete what I was saying earlier about, yes, the data centers. Something that hasn't been brought up much also is the dark skies that are very necessary for nocturnal beings and, not nocturnal beings, but plants and also migratory animals. They have a natural right to undisturbed routine behavior that they have. Yeah. Finish that sentence, you know what I'm saying. I just want to really kind of beg for the most thorough studies you can do on everything, including the people that are getting, and I know you said not everybody, you're not always disclosed with everything, but if that could be a thing, because I saw a lot of stuff slip through the cracks with permits that are going through. I'm kind of too scared to talk about much of it because they are billion dollar companies. But their histories of really nasty, insidious behavior was overlooked. I just want people to people's history to be known before they're allowed to have access to our water, our minerals, affecting our animals, things of that nature. Right now is a pivotal point in our state and country. So we will either go down in history as saving our place or destroying it. And I also wanted to say, I'm sure you guys are aware, Nevada is a targeted state more than any other state for resources right now. I don't know if you guys have looked at the map of all the dots everywhere in our state compared to the rest of the country. And that's it.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Good afternoon. Kevin Pletzner, 321 South Casino Center.
I dropped off packages about what I wanted to talk to your mailbox. I don't know if you ever read them. I've got extra copies.
We're surrounded.
We have an eight-story parking garage across from the courthouse and jail. And it's also next to another county building. And we have the Catholic Church on the other side. we've missed experiencing a lot of a security problem some of it due to the location being surrounded by the county other for other reasons uh... i want to talk to people that run security for the county to see if we can work together to improve security in the area uh... you know i had more cameras uh... work with their patrols that they have now designated security uh... to Close down the area make it safe. I don't know where I would start And that's the question is simple to the point Where do I start? Who do I talk to?
We're not allowed to deliberate, but if you finish your comments, I'll try to address it.
Could I just say, Mr. Chair, that we all got the letter, and we've referred the matter to the manager's office. He made a couple of suggestions in there, and someone will reach out and contact him.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.
Carlos de Santiago. I just wanted to comment on item 16. It seems like it was like skipped over or just kind of written off. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I'm new here. I don't know. But it sounded like there was a contract for almost a million dollars for a database migration. And it seems like it didn't work out, or maybe the data that they provided was of not good quality. So you guys backed off from it. I went on this company's website. I think it's called Quintitive LLC. They're hiring people from India. And so, I mean, I don't know. I assume the data that... this contract dealt with was, you know, your data, people's data. If they're hiring people from India, you know, is that something you guys check for or, you know, when you put out this contract? All this to say, just came in to kind of kick the tires on criteria for choosing these contractors when you go about them. And also, like, you know, that was a lot of money. I think you guys settled on 800K or 600K. Did you guys get anything from that, from their services? Because it seems like they didn't fully go through that whole contract. So just came here to bring this up. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello, Katrina Ivanov for the record. I apologize that I'll be all over the board because I was not expecting to be here and speaking or I would have looked a little better. So when it comes to data centers, I don't know if you're aware of the fact that China has 1.5 billion people and they have between 370 and 470 data centers, and they already implementing absolute surveillance, including if they speak up against their government, they're not allowed to use buses, their money are stopped, and everything that. So with 1.5 billion people, they have at the best 470 data centers. United States with 350 million, that's more than four times less people. We already have 4,000 building fully operational data centers and 3,000 are in some kind of a process of being built. With that said, I would really ask that you guys put a moratorium on data centers building from now on just until we get more information. Ms. Kirkpatrick said she's going to provide us information to put our mind at ease. This is not what the public wants. We want the real information, and we're going to decide if our minds are going to be at ease or not. We are adults. Give us the facts, and let us, we the people, decide. And I know you mentioned that we have the golden standard, and that is an overreach. Golden standard would be when we, the people, rally behind you and agree with what you're doing. And that's not the case, not even close. Are we better than other places? From what I'm learning about data centers, at least with Switch, it looks like we are. However, everything is so secretive and the information isn't, not readily available, so we don't even know if what they're telling us is truth. What else? I want to mention for the record that everybody but Ms. Becker is getting money from the data center's owners, data center's affiliates, and stuff like that, so we believe that's a conflict of interest, and that's why we're a little bit unhappy. What else do I have here? On a different note, this country was founded on Christian values when they were writing the Constitution, which is the best document ever written, in my opinion. They were about to not be able to do it. They hit a wall. And Benjamin Franklin asked everybody to stop and everybody to pray over whatever they are doing. And I personally believe that it was with God's guidance that they wrote the Constitution because it's nearly a perfect document. Does that mean three minutes are done or you're just beeping me?
No, that's three minutes. Thank you for your comments.
Okay, so keep the prayer, but don't let devils worshipers pray.
Thank you. Thank you. Welcome.
Thank you. My name is Jeffrey Brew, 9828 Sedona Shrine, and I sent you all an introductory email late last week, and I thought I'd come in and introduce myself in person on item 50. I heard what all the other NBS had to say about no data centers, and I agree with them. One thing they didn't mention is the fact that we're not getting as much water downstream from Lake Powell in order to preserve the integrity of Glen Canyon Dam. And I think not only should there be a moratorium on new data centers, but I think the ones that are currently under construction should be stopped until that water loss can be mitigated. Thanks for your time. Have a good day.
Thank you Good afternoon
Afternoon. Thank you, Board. Eric King. I have a bit of a rushed time here to do two things now. I thought I didn't need to do one. I wanted to note that I have emailed the county clerk office before today regarding my concerns over what is or is not included of my public comments from the dates of 5-19 and 6-2-26 to county board of commissioners meetings. I asked staff just moments, minutes after the public comment section whether or not item three had been approved. They said it hadn't. I learned about 10 minutes or so ago that it had been. I don't know why staff wasn't telling me that it hadn't been approved early on in this session, but I wanted to note that on 519 at timestamp 101, at timestamp 201, that's one hour, one minute, excuse me, I believe it's one hour and one minute and two hours and one minute and also two hours and eight minutes into the session on 519 along with two hours 24 minutes and two hours 26 minutes and two hours and 41 minutes and at the end of four hours and nine minutes, and on 6-2 at time stamp, 21 minutes and 30 seconds, one hour and two minutes, one hour and seven minutes, and one hour and five zero minutes. I spoke on various items, including protecting our heroes. I now have only a minute or so to talk about what I wanted to talk about here in particular in addition to mentioning that this is July 7th 250 years ago in four days Very smart men decided to sign into being a declaration of independence, making the greatest nation on earth possible in the minds and hearts of people. Today, I don't think I'll get through it all in 49 seconds. I'm making a declaration of tree dependence. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to resolve ecological band-aids that have connected them with each other to assume among the powers of the earth the intimate and noble relations that the laws of nature and of nature's God that vitalize them a decent respect for the opinions of mankind inspire that ways be clarified for causes which impel them to this declaration. We find these truths to be self-evident that hot city residents are equal in being endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. There's more to come, I can't say it today.
We'll see you next time. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? If not, we will recess until tomorrow at 9 a.m. See you then.
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.