Former lawmaker offers innovative ideas

Matt Callister has been out of public life for a long time, but he still has some ideas.

Callister, who lost his Las Vegas City Council seat to now-Clark County Commissioner (and mayoral candidate) Larry Brown in 1997, has been practicing law for the past 14 years. Before that, he served as a state assemblyman (and chairman of the Finance Committee) and a state senator, as well as a member of the council.

He’s seen Nevada from the state and local level. Now, he’s got something to say about it.

Callister is a Democrat, but his solutions don’t involve creating new taxes or raising existing ones.

Instead, he says in an open letter to Nevada’s political establishment, “state and local government must be seen as maximizing revenue savings and pursuing all new revenue options.”

First, he says, consolidate the city of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Clark County under a strong mayor form of government. It’s the kind of arrangement that works for San Francisco, for example. “We are a world-class community masquerading as a cowtown,” Callister writes. “This (consolidation) could well complete a revolution in municipal collective bargaining and the savings it could generate could be substantial.”

Next, he says, legalize the cultivation, wholesaling and retailing of medical marijuana. In Nevada, medical marijuana is legal, as is growing small amounts for personal use. But buying marijuana is still illegal, leading to what Callister calls an “idiotic” system that says you can possess your legally prescribed medicine, but you must grow it yourself.

This would certainly draw the ire of the Drug Enforcement Administration, but it would help patients get their medicine and generate tax revenue.

Recreational use could remain illegal.

Third, Callister recommends building a world-class stadium, with public dollars. The initial cost (estimated at more than $400 million by at least one would-be stadium developer) would eventually be offset by the additional tourism.

Fourth, Callister endorses the idea of establishing a “ring around the valley” to prevent leapfrog development and encourage new projects to be built inside the valley. There’s not much development going on now, but Callister says there’s vacant and undervalued land inside the urban core that could spur urban redevelopment, if far-flung land were closed to developers.

Fifth, and perhaps most controversial, Callister says Nevadans need to accept Yucca Mountain as a reality and profit from it.

“More than 20 years ago, Yucca was thrust on Nevadans. We embarked on a ‘just say no’ course that has brought us no jobs, no economic revitalization and no true diversification,” he writes. Since there’s no way to replace oil with renewable energy — at least in the short term — nuclear power is a reality.

“So here we sit with opportunity to negotiate at our doorstep, yet we refuse to even open the door to engage in dialogue,” Callister writes. But he says we shouldn’t sell out cheap, insisting on endowed chairs in alternative energy research at state universities, a rail line to Yucca through the central part of the state, and funds for high-speed rail travel to Southern California.

The letter is vintage Callister — provocative, controversial but also thought-provoking. Some of his ideas are probably more viable — politically and financially — than others. But they’re a “no new taxes” place to start talking about ways to fix the state’s eternally broken tax system, and they’re things nobody is thinking or talking about now.

At the very least, they’re a welcome respite from the eternal debate — cut budgets or raise taxes — that grips Nevada every odd-numbered year.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. His column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at (702) 387-5276 or at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.