ELY -- White Pine County commissioners have approved a nickel-a-gallon gas tax increase to help pay for road improvements.
Though many Ely-area residents opposed the increase during a public hearing last week, commissioners said the tax was the only way to try to attract state money for much-needed road projects.
"They basically won't help us until they know that we have done everything we can to help ourselves," Commission Paul Johnson said of state Transportation officials in Carson City.
Once implemented, White Pine County's gasoline tax will be 9-cents per gallon -- the maximum a county can levy under state law -- and generate about $555,000 a year, county officials said.
But the amount is still short of the $1.5 million county officials say is needed each year for road repairs and improvements.
