Democracy in action

By Timothy Pratt

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

PAHRUMP - The symbolism of the moment was unmistakable.

Moments after his controversial ordinance was tabled, Scott Metro left the Pahrump Town Board meeting Tuesday night - soon to be followed by other white faces.

"It was democracy in action, and I respect their opinion," Metro said, tugging on a Marlboro in the chilly night air.

Metro's own effort at democracy in action was an ordinance that would have required illegal immigrants to register with the town, pay a $200 fee and provide the names of their family members and employers - all for the privilege of being in Pahrump.

Others of light skin soon followed Metro, highlighting the remarkable, perhaps historic, nature of a town board meeting at which most of the faces still stuffing the hall were Hispanic.

For most of those Hispanics, it was their first town board meeting.

The estimated 500 people inside, with another 100 turned away, made for the largest Pahrump meeting in recent memory. They were there, with occasional catcalls, to see whether the proposed ordinance - written by Metro and sponsored by town board member Michael Miraglia - would get read into the record.

"In some ways, it was great ... You look out there and see all the little children," board member Ronald Johnson said Wednesday of the meeting.

Others, like Al Castaneda, who said he recently signed up 150 Pahrump residents for the Mexican American Political Association, described it as a turning point in the town's history.

"I cannot believe there are five white people running this town," Castaneda said. He made similar comments during the meeting.

"We are going to change that," he added.

The ordinance was only the latest in a series of attempts to deal with the issue of immigration in Pahrump, a town an hour west of Las Vegas expected to more than double its population of 35,000 over the next five years.

Last month, the town's five-member board approved an ordinance that drew widespread media attention. That ordinance was stripped down Tuesday, when Miraglia, its author, pulled the portion making it illegal to fly a foreign flag by itself. The remaining stipulations are that all town business be in English and that no town benefits be granted to illegal immigrants.

Tuesday's meeting was the last for Miraglia, Johnson and two others, all of whom had reached their term limits.

Regardless of whether the new members are inclined to support similar immigration measures, two things seem certain: The issue isn't going away, and area Hispanics are poised to become more involved in town life.

Jacqueline Guerra - who spoke in the meeting about how children in town recently told her two school-aged children to "go back to Mexico" and to stop speaking Spanish - said Wednesday that the recent months of attention to immigration "pushed us ... to know we have a voice."

Guerra, who works as an office coordinator in a workers' compensation firm, moved to Pahrump from Sacramento six months ago.

She is a U.S. citizen and her children were born in this country.

Guerra said she would be following the effort to organize local groups of Hispanics, as well as keeping tabs on upcoming town board meetings.

Apart from politics, some, like Metro, say the immigration issue also is about the bottom line.

Metro said he thought the board scuttled his proposal because area businesses don't want to threaten a source of cheap labor.

"Certain large construction companies in town don't want to see them (illegal immigrants) go away," he said. "Then they would have to pay a living wage."

Pahrump's growth is being fueled by 18,000 homes approved for construction over the next five years.

Johnson said a developer, whom he would not name, had called him in the days before the meeting "to talk about the whole issue."

"People tend to have their own agenda," he said. "For instance, if you have a person using labor at a lesser rate, he is going to come out against an ordinance like that."

At the same time, "Nobody owns me," Johnson added.

Johnson voted to table the ordinance because "there is language that I felt was not going to be ... a positive move. Why do something that is divisive instead of ... holding hands and creating some level of response?"

Having stepped down from the board, Johnson hopes to put together a group to address immigration's effects on the town - even though, he said, the solutions lie with the federal government.

"The U.S. senators and members of Congress have done such a pitiful job of dealing with these issues and forced small-town America to deal with it."