bY Jeri Chadwell-Singley
POT SHOT
Businesses along Fourth Street and Prater Way have put up signs to remind passersby that they’re open during construction.
Many Nevada medical marijuana dispensaries in good standing with the state will be allowed to start selling recreational pot on July 1. On May 8, the Nevada Tax Commission voted 6-1 in favor of approving temporary licenses, good through Jan. 1, 2018, while the commission continues drafting rules to govern recreational pot. The move should allow the Nevada Department of Taxation time to see how well regulations work before they make them final. However, dispensaries need both a state and local license. As of press time, it remained to be seen how the Reno City Council, which was recently considering a six-month moratorium on recreational pot sales, would respond to the opportunity.
PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS
—JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY
HealTH care vOTe The vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. House of Representatives last week included these Nevada House member votes: No - Dina Titus, House district 1 Yes - Mark Amodei, House district 2 No - Jacky Rosen, House district 3 No - Ruben Kihuen, House district 4 Repeal passed by four votes out of 430 cast. The vote has hiked political pressure on U.S. senators.
Down the road Trump budget may cut local funding
rG-J GOeS Premium One of our readers says he recently began having trouble reading the day’s news on the Reno GazetteJournal. He called a number for inquiries, he said: “I called and got a nice lady in South Carolina. Apparently, the first 10 articles per month free is no longer available, but I should be able to get to the front page of RGJ.com without a password. She said that getting inside from there without an account was no longer an option. I set up an account from my home delivered subscription. They’re going to [email] me with the [password]. However, I still cannot get to their website’s front page. Perhaps my operating system is too damned old, kinda like me. Their techs are going to call me.” At press time, he had not heard back from the techs. Surprisingly, a recent front page message to readers about changes at the RG-J made no mention of this switch.
TeSla’S STruGGleS For months, Tesla’s money difficulties have been chronicled in articles with headlines like “Tesla Is Burning Through Cash” as the company tore through its assets. On May 3, Tesla reports showed a near-doubling of revenues but also losses piling up. “Record deliveries helped Tesla boost its revenue to $2.7 billion in the quarter, but a net loss ... widened to $330.3 million from $282.3 million a year earlier, largely driven by its SolarCity acquisition,” Fortune reported. Tesla’s Elon Musk said he believes consumers are confused about whether its still-to-be-released Model 3 is an advance over the more expensive Model S, causing sales of Model S to slow.
—DENNIS MYERS 8
|
RN&R
|
05.11.17
crews have been working since late January on major construction along a 3.1-mile stretch of road that cuts through Reno and Sparks. And it’ll be summer 2018 before they’re finished. The projected 18-month, $58 million Fourth Street/Prater Way Bus RAPID Transit Project will, according to the Regional Transportation Commission, yield more than just a resurfaced road. All utilities along the route are being moved underground and wide, ADA-compliant sidewalks constructed. The route will undergo lane “dieting” to produce single-lane travel in each direction, a dedicated center turn lane, and bike lanes running both east and west. According to its official website, the project also “includes eight passenger stations (four in each direction), off-vehicle fare collection, transit signal priority, realtime schedule information at stations and a bus charging facility.” It’s a big undertaking. And that’s actually part of the reason RTC was able to secure big money in the form of federal grant dollars, including a $16 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the TIGER grant program—started under the Obama administration in 2009—is designed to fund projects that “generate economic
development and improve access to reliable, safe and affordable transportation.” That’s exactly what RTC Executive Director Lee Gibson said the 4th/Prater project will do. “We’re going to be able to help connect people who live in moderate income neighborhoods to educational and job opportunities that they might not otherwise be able to access without sidewalk, bicycle and transit connections, because they maybe just don’t have access to an automobile,” he said. “One of the challenges we face right now is workforce development—trying to get people the skills so they can take the jobs that are coming, instead of having to bring people in. And this project was noted in the TIGER grant application and award for doing just that.” Future RTC projects—like the Virginia Street Bus RAPID Transit Extension, tentatively set to begin next spring—were also designed to further economic development and educational access. But federal grant programs designated for projects like these may cease to exist under the Trump administration—whose “skinny” budget proposal released in March recommended a 13 percent overall decrease in the DOT’s annual budget and the immediate elimination of the TIGER grant program. Congress, which did
not pass a 2017 spending bill last fall, went against many of Trump’s recommendations last week when it finally passed a $1.1 trillion spending package to keep the government running through September. (Both Dean Heller and Mark Amodei voted against it. The state’s Democratic representatives voted in favor.) Of course, the matter is by no means resolved. Funding for these programs may very well be on the chopping block again when it’s time for 2018 appropriations bills. Nonetheless, it is Congress—not the president—that passes spending bills. While he makes recommendations, control is not his. And Trump’s “very major” $1 trillion infrastructure proposal is still forthcoming. Depending on what shape it takes, the future of infrastructure spending could be altered significantly. “Like a lot of things in the Trump administration today, there seems to be wide oscillations in which direction policy goes,” Gibson said. “So, we will wait and see.” As an example of “oscillations,” Gibson points to suggestions that Trump’s infrastructure package might be paid for in part by instituting a repatriation tax holiday on corporate earnings being held abroad. Companies that have “parked” their overseas profits outside the U.S. until Congress gives them a tax cut (“Their masters’ voices,” RN&R, July 28, 2016) would get that cut and pay less than the standard statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent when bringing money back to the U.S.—with the lower taxes paid earmarked for infrastructure. “Depending on how that plays out, that actually could end up being a huge boom for infrastructure if those funds are allocated to DOT and that is the new and expanded source for projects like this,” Gibson said. “I mean, I’ve lived through bills and these types of things in my career. My recommendation is to continue, stay the course. It’ll all work itself out, and funding will be available.” One way funding may be available in the future is through a Nevada state infrastructure bank (SIB), which Senate Bill 517 proposes to create. The bank would be able to receive federal and other funds and provide loans and financial assistance to state and local agencies, like the RTC. According to Gibson, the RTC supports the measure, which could provide a funding mechanism for things like improvements to
