Incumbent Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill is facing challenger Marsha Berkbigler on Nov. 5 in the race for the District 1 seat.
Berkbigler held the seat for eight years until Hill defeated her in the 2020 election. Berkbigler was a state lobbyist for more than 40 years, representing a variety of businesses. Those included mining, engineering, health care, insurance, telecommunications and nonprofit groups.
Hill, prior to being elected to the commission where she now serves as chairman, worked in public policy and city planning for more than a decade at the cities of Sparks and Reno. She also has worked with the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, and Kids & Horses, a nonprofit program.
District 1 includes portions of the western side of the Truckee Meadows and extends south along the eastern Sierra to include Incline Village and Crystal Bay at Lake Tahoe.
Why they are running
Berkbigler, a Republican, came out of retirement last year to run for her former seat, she said, because many district residents complained that questions they asked county officials often were ignored, and/or they were displeased with Hill’s actions on the panel. Berkbigler said if elected, she would revisit initiatives she was working on when she was on the panel between 2012 and 2020. Those include affordable housing, senior and homeless services, and transportation.
“I dream of a place where older people feel valued and where everyone thinks their opinions matter for our future,” Berkbigler said. “… I believe in being careful with our money and not making you pay more taxes than needed. We can find smart ways to solve our problems while making sure we use our money to improve our lives here.”
Hill, a Democrat, said she is seeking a second term to follow through on initiatives started over the last four years. She said she has “a strong belief that government should make our lives better.” Her priorities include following smart growth policies; fighting climate change on a local level; government accountability and transparency; and citizen access to government. She said she supports community-building initiatives, including youth, senior and neighborhood services; mental illness and drug addiction support; homelessness services; and other public health initiatives while balancing the needs of various constituencies.
“That’s why I get so excited about this job,” Hill said. “Every day, it’s what can I do with the sphere that I control, with the funds that I have and the power I can exert to make things better for people in Washoe County.”
The two candidates differ on a variety of issues.
CARES campus
Berkbigler said the county should “seriously consider” collecting a fee from unhoused people staying at the CARES campus who have jobs or other income.
“There are a lot of people who have significant income over there, and yet they are living there for free. It’s not the majority of the homeless; I’m talking about people who can work and have money to buy drugs,” she said.
In addition, Berkbigler said the county spends money on CARES “without any real serious transparency for what they’re spending that money on and why.” She noted that the county and cities used federal COVID-related grants to help fund the project while rents in the area have skyrocketed.
“Seniors are losing their apartments because instead of placing some of that money that came in from the feds during COVID … to protect our seniors and their housing, most of that money went somewhere else,” she said.
Berkbigler called for “a full forensic accounting” of the CARES campus and homeless services.
Hill said charging a fee for employed people to stay at CARES is a bad idea. “(People who have jobs) usually have relatively short stays at CARES,” she said. “Charging those vulnerable people fees is a pretty callous concept when talking about people who need a hand up. … If there’s a fee, they will stay on the river; they will stay in their cars.”
Hill noted that about half of the people who stay at the shelter are older than 55, so what is spent on CARES does directly help seniors, including permanent supportive housing coming online next year. Budget figures and a breakdown of expenses, she said, are easily available from the county.
Senior services
Berkbigler said too little is spent on senior services compared to other county programs, including homeless services and animal services.
“The seniors who worked and lived in Nevada for a long time are not getting the same sort of attention that we are giving to homeless people—who have recently arrived—and that bothers a lot of people,” she said.
County documents show that a total of $19.5 million is budgeted for CARES campus operations in fiscal year 2024, with $17.5 million of that coming from the county’s general fund. The documents put the annual budgeted amount for animal services at $7.2 million, and the budgeted amount for senior services at $7.6 million. (The total county budget is $1.1 billion, with $516 million coming from the general fund.)
Hill said senior services have expanded during her time on the panel, noting that the county has recently remodeled the senior center on Ninth Street. She said she supports seniors being able to “age in place” in their own homes. The commission, she said, approved a grant for respite care for caregivers who need a break, as well as a Homemaker Program to help keep people in their homes.
Hill noted the county has many different needs. “Should we do more for seniors, for everyone in our community? Absolutely!” Hill said. “There are so many opportunities for us to invest for every single facet of our community.”
She noted that the county is limited by depreciating property tax and decreasing sales tax revenues since COVID, “but we are doing everything we can. … We have to invest in trails, child care, foster families, parks, transportation and so many other things. We’re trying to find a balance.”
Government transparency
Berkbigler said many residents complain about a “lack of transparency” in county government and say they can’t get answers from the county when they ask about issues.
“People are paying closer attention to what’s happening at the local government level,” she said. “They want to know what their government is doing.”
She said when residents ask questions about programs or funding, they often are sent lengthy reports and budget documents that are inscrutable to people outside of government. Even as a former commissioner, she said, she has trouble unraveling the financial reports for homeless services.
Hill said transparency in county government was a top issue in her 2020 campaign and that the county practices open government. Decisions are made in public at commission meetings, and the county adheres to Nevada’s open records laws. Commissioners work with citizen advisory boards and encourage citizens to get involved in the development process. The county, she said, is about to implement open paycheck and open payroll information online with the state.
“I’m not sure what (Berkbigler) is talking about when she complains about a lack of transparency,” Hill said.
Public comment periods
Over the last few years, the County Commission has seen an increase in people who want to address the panel during the open public comment period. A local election denier who stokes conspiracy theories routinely implores his followers to swarm commission meetings to complain about elections or other topics, which adds hours to the panel’s meetings. In response, Hill rescheduled the public comment portion of the meetings.
Hill said she initially moved the comment period to the end of the meeting, because many of the speakers were “purposely trying to disrupt our meeting, something that we are seeing all over the country. … We’re not there to have a dialogue with everyone who speaks about topics not on the day’s agenda. That would make it hard for us to get the work of the county done.”
Commissioner Clara Andriola wanted the comments restored to the start of the meeting. “We compromised,” Hill said. “We now have open comment (from 10 to) 11 a.m., and then resume it at the end after the agenda items. … That’s actually worked out really well.”
Berkbigler said she wants the entire comment period restored to the beginning of the meetings.
“If citizens want to speak about some item on the agenda, but can’t speak until the end of the meeting, their item will already have been decided by then,” she said. “You may not be able to get to the meeting when the public hearing (on the agenda item) is scheduled in the afternoon, but if the issue is of vital importance to you, you can address the commission at the beginning of the meeting. … It’s the commissioners’ job to sit there and listen to what the citizens want to say.”
Lake Tahoe congestion
Hill suggested considering a visitors’ fee for the often-gridlocked Lake Tahoe Basin, with the proceeds going to public transportation initiatives around Tahoe.
“Congestion pricing is happening all over the country. It’s not unheard of,” she said. “… I’d like to see a really great transportation program at Tahoe like some other mountain communities have. We need ways to dissuade folks from using their cars.”
Hill said the county will have to work with the state and regional governments and agencies to make that happen. Next year’s Legislature, Hill said, will consider a bill Washoe County proposed that would add $4.25 a day to the short-term rental fee already in place for Incline Village and Crystal Bay properties. The revenue from the increase, she said, would go directly to transportation. Each county or city around Lake Tahoe charges its own short-term rental fees, she noted.
Berkbigler said that some Incline Village residents have also suggested a visitor-fee measure, but she doesn’t know how such a system would work in practice. She said a portion of the short-term rental fees goes to the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority.
“That money should go to transportation, but it isn’t,” she said. “Instead of sending it down to the valley, that money could be used for transportation in Incline Village.”
She said the proposal for the $4.25 fee increase “should be (Tahoe) Basin-wide. If it is not, then it might have a direct impact on vacation rentals on the Nevada side. … Where is the gaming industry on this? Is this something the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency can do on its own? It will be important to look at the total impact.”