Lawmaker: Let voters pick road projects

CARSON CITY — A Southern Nevada assemblyman is trying to drum up support for a plan to let citizens decide what roads they want built and how they intend to pay for them.

Sensing little legislative support for tax increases or Gov. Jim Gibbons’ road plan, Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, said the most promising option may be to let voters decide whether they want to tax themselves for roads.

“I come from Boulder City. We vote on everything,” Hardy said. “I believe in giving voters a chance. If it is a road I am driving on, then I am going to vote for it.”

The Nevada Department of Transportation cannot start working on all 10 superhighway projects that a state task force last year recommended that the Legislature approve $3.8 billion to construct. So the department should do a cost-benefit analysis on the projects, Hardy said. The ones at top of the list should be placed before voters, along with proposed tax increases to fund their construction, he said.

Assembly Transportation Chairman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, called Hardy’s plan a “cop-out.”

Legislators were elected to do a job, and throwing the issue to voters should be their last option if everything else fails, Atkinson said.

“We need to investigate every avenue before the Legislature lets out,” he said.

The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn June 4, but has been forced to go into special sessions to complete business three of the last four legislative sessions.

Assembly Democrats have introduced legislation to fund road construction by imposing a 15-cent per mile tax on commercial trucks and taking half of an existing car rental tax.

But those proposals call for tax increases, and Gibbons has vowed repeatedly to veto any tax increase. Atkinson has said eight or nine tax proposals are under consideration.

Hardy said he does not see support in the Legislature to approve any of the proposed tax plans.

Gibbons jumped into the fray on Thursday, proposing the state raise $2.5 billion for highway construction by reallocating room, sales and live entertainment taxes. Under Gibbons’ plan, the state highway fund would receive $424 million over eight years from room taxes going to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, along with $148 million in sales tax from vehicle sales and $212 million in live entertainment taxes now sent to the state general fund.

Using that revenue, the state could sell $2.5 billion in bonds and begin work on the highway projects.

The proposal has not been warmly received in the Legislature, and virtually the entire gaming industry in Southern Nevada has rejected the room tax plan.

A Review-Journal poll earlier this month found only 9 percent of voters surveyed from across the state considered highway congestion the most important issue before the 2007 Legislature.

Only 38 percent of the respondents said they favored increasing taxes to pay for $3.8 billion in road improvements.

When polled on specific taxes for roads, voters overwhelmingly supported hotel room taxes and increasing gaming taxes. But they strongly rejected toll roads and increasing gas taxes and license fees to pay for roads.

Hardy was not deterred by the poll’s results. Given a specific project and specific taxes to fund its construction, people will support road tax increases, he said.

“People in Clark County always have voted for roads,” Hardy said. “My money, my roads.”

He favors a Clark County-only ballot question on roads in the county. Seven of the 10 proposed projects are in Clark County, including the most expensive, the $2 billion widening of Interstate 15 in Las Vegas and south to Primm.

If Washoe County voters want highways in their area constructed, then Hardy said they should be allowed to vote in a similar election.

Earlier this session, Gibbons said he would not oppose moves to let voters decide whether to tax themselves for roads.