Town on verge of dissolution

Monday, Feb. 12, 2001 | 11:20 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The city of Gabbs, a once thriving mining community, may soon be dissolved.

With the closure of mines, the city has fallen on hard times, unable to keep its municipal services going.

The Senate Government Affairs Committee has decided to ask for a bill to take away the city status of the town in the northwest corner of Nye County. "I hate to see the dissolution," said Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, whose district includes Nye County.

The only solution is to allow Nye to pick up the government responsibilities, he said.

For instance, there was not enough money to repair the generator in the ambulance. To pay for the water system, rates would have had to be raised to between $85 and $90 a month. The city has been run by the state Taxation Department for the past two years, McGinness said.

The population has dwindled from about 700 in 1991 to 200 today. Its city hall is open from noon to 5 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said once the city is disincorporated, it falls to county government to handle the responsibilities. McGinness said Nye County officials have been working to help the city out.

"It's a shame," Gabbs Mayor Ray Dummar said. "It's like when you can't make it and you have to move back in with your mother and father and have to obey their rules and take their spankings."

Dummar said the problem arose because of the spending habits by a prior City Council. "They spent money like it was water," he said.

He didn't have kind words for the state Taxation Department, either. "They didn't know nothing about running a city. They spent a lot of our money."

The city is divided about the loss of its status, said the mayor, who earns $200 a month. Adding to the problem, he said, the state two years ago took away property tax money from the city.

Gabbs was incorporated in 1955, State Archivist Guy Rocha said. Its heyday was in World War II, when the ore turned out by the mines was shipped to the Basic Magnesium plant in Henderson.

McGinness' mother came from the Midwest to work in Gabbs. She lived in a tent, because there was no housing available in the fast growing community then, the state senator said.

City officials were notified about two meetings to discuss the town's future and its financial difficulties, but they chose not to attend, McGinness said.

McGinness said the city would not lose its identity. It could create an advisory board or an elective or appointed town board, so its residents would still have a voice.

Dummar said he and the three council members would become "figureheads like the king and queen of England."