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Thursday, May 27, 2010 | 8:42 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Reno sides with Southern Nevada in Legislature battle (5-24-10)
- Governor, Legislature seek to keep $62 million for state budget (3-18-10)
- Gibbons signs budget bill; state draws M Resort lawsuit (3-12-10)
- Clean Water Coalition will sue state to keep $62 million targeted by lawmakers (3-11-10)
- Will a gamer sue the state over part of special session budget plan? (3-2-10)
Sun Coverage
CARSON CITY – Lawyers for the Legislature and the state attorney general’s office say the city of Reno is off base in its support of Southern Nevada governments who are trying to stop the state from taking $62 million in sewer collection fees.
The attorneys say Reno has failed to provide any “sound legal reasoning” why the Nevada Supreme Court should rule in favor of the Clean Water Coalition.
The coalition is composed of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and the Clark County Water Reclamation District, which collected $62 million for sewer projects. The Legislature ordered the money to the state to help balance the budget.
Reno filed a Friend of the Court brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the law adopted during a special session of the Legislature earlier this year. Reno said that if the court upholds this law, it could discourage local governments from forming coalitions to tackle problems.
Kevin Powers, senior principal deputy legislative counsel and C. Wayne Howle, solicitor general in the attorney general’s office, say the court must confine its consideration to whether the law is constitutional and not if it affects public policy.
“Even if a statute works a hardship on those who must comply with its commands, such a fact is irrelevant to the court’s constitutional inquiry,” said the Powers-Howle brief.
They said Reno cannot use the Supreme Court “to attack the policy, wisdom or expediency of the statute.”
Facing a major deficit, the Legislature ordered the Clean Water Coalition to turn over the $62 million to the state. It said the money was surplus.
The coalition has refused to transfer the money and the Supreme Court will decide who wins in the money tug-of-war. Oral arguments will be set later this year.
The coalition collected the money to build a pipeline to transport effluent from the local treatment plants to Lake Mead and to generate hydroelectric power from the effluent carried in the pipeline.
However, work on the project was suspended until 2012 due to the economic decline, lack of growth and current effluent treatment standards. The coalition maintains the $62 million is not surplus.
Reno is worried that the money transfer law could mean that local fees could be converted to state taxes.
The Powers-Howle brief said the Legislature had the constitutional power to enact the law even if it has “adverse public policy impacts as alleged by the city of Reno.”
City of Reno is not off base, they are watching out for their own interest. If the state wins taking money away from the Clean Water Coalition, what money are they suppose to use when its time to upgrade or expand the water and sewage system. Money should not be transfer or converted from any agency to cover state budget shortfalls. If the state succeeds here, then the state can take money from cities and counties at will.
The city is Reno is totally within it's rights to voice it's concern. They are also concerned that the state will step in and take any reserves or money that they have. All of the cities and counties should be together on this one. It only makes common sense.
The CWC was a $$$ scam agency from getgo, under the SNWA agenda to rob its water users blind.
If the SNWA trustees (commissioners) ever done their job to permit "individuals" their RIGHT to purchase effluent water from its Reclamation Districts, then these insane mass of pipeline dreams would be moot, and its water districts would sustain a revenue!
Instead, they reject reclamation contracts, under the guise of a "water compact agreement" that is outdated & lawfully un-enforcable.
Their insane pipedreams and their CWC agency should be dismantled, their $$$ impounded by the sovereign State, & reclamation contract RIGHTS re-instated to individuals (not just for corporation special interest).
Besides that, how on this planet of gravity does CWC expect "to generate hydroelectric power from the effluent carried in the pipeline."???
Do they really think they can pipe effluent up hill, then receive sirplus power when it comes down???
That is mathmatically IMPOSSIBLE!
1-1=0. Or, Nothing for Something = Nothing.
Pumping water from Lake Mead to Vegas from a certain elevation, & pumping that effluent back into the exact elevation it came from, is not hydroelectric energy, it is FRAUD and a WASTE of all energy fabricated from the CWC thieves!
As Billy Freston sang in 1975, "Nothing for Nothing" leaves Nothing... .
LARRY BROWN, you are a dead man walking in political scams!
LARRY BROWN - the WOODBURY tyrrant legacy of full control of life, liberty & property rights is OVER, fool.
Go back to Misquite & get a real job!