Douglas County Commission candidates fielded questions for two nights from rank-and-file sheriff's deputies, sergeants and investigators in a forum designed to make the office-seekers aware of the law enforcement officers' concerns.
"We have an immediate problem," said Deputy Kevin Schaller who hosted the Douglas County Sheriff's Protective Association program. "This is a very, very serious time. Our department is in dire shape right now.
"In this time of budget shortages and increasing demands of services, we believe it is important for the candidates to understand the challenges facing our membership and to learn more about their positions pertaining to public safety. As you may be aware, our agency has approximately 10 vacant positions and even when fully staffed, we are well below Department of Justice standards for officers, based on our population, geographic area and call volume," Schaller said in remarks before the forum.
Candidates answered a nine-item questionnaire that touched on topics ranging from competitive pay and benefits for officers to affordable housing, staffing shortages and employee retention.
The candidates agreed that public safety was their No. 1 priority, but had a variety of opinions how to make that happen.
The forums were held Tuesday and Wednesday night at Carson Valley First United Methodist Church. The sessions were open to the public, but only association members asked questions.
Candidates were admitted to the forum after their individual presentations.
Participants included Anje de Knijf, Greg Lynn and David Nelson in District 1; incumbent Doug Johnson, Eric Rieman and Blaine Spires, District 2; Nancy Epstein, Michael Olson and Stuart Posselt, District 5.
George Thiel, running for District 5, did not attend or submit answers to the questionnaire.
Schaller said the 80-member association will vote on what candidates " if any " to endorse.
The candidates' reposes are available on The Record-Courier's Web site, www.recordcourier.com.
Here are candidates' answers to a question about affordable housing:
Q. How would you address the fact that the sheriff's deputies cannot afford to live in the same community they police?
District 1
De Knijf: There currently are homes that are affordable for the sheriff's deputies. Obviously, a pay increase would be the answer to qualifying for a mortgage to own a home.
Lynn: There is a small bright spot in this scenario, in that home prices are falling with no end in sight. In the past I participated in several dozen interview boards with Community Development and we constantly ran into this very problem. Our salaries have historically not been high enough to enable new hires to buy a home here unless they cashed out equity from a sale wherever they came from. Also, the Board of Commissioners has shown little appetite for the densities that would allow the creation of workforce housing, and county construction standards are always going up, making the creation of this type of housing more difficult. All county departments face this challenge. I don't want to sound like I'm dodging this question, but I need to point out there is no easy answer.
Nelson: There are rentals, mobile homes, condominiums, townhouses and small starter homes that entry level workers can afford. Affordability is about as good as it has been for awhile right now. It may get even better. I would be glad to personally help any new employee find an affordable residence in Douglas County.
District 3
Johnson: With the economic downturn the affordability has softened. We need to jointly make information available and take advantage of entities like Nevada Housing Authority that are already present. With efforts to find existing programs and the work force housing priority recently discussed at the commissioner level, we can win this battle.
Rieman: The annual income for Douglas was about $54,000, but with the housing market of 2006 to 2007, there wasn't a lot of options for a single working family to buy a house in Douglas County. The low income homes were still high dollar. I would like to see some single-working family housing (not low income). I myself am a third generation in the Valley and cannot afford a house here. There are a lot of officers in Reno that can't afford to live there.
Spires: This is one of the main planks in my platform. Affordable/attainable housing is a large concern of mine considering many entry level jobs, whether it be public service or private sector, salaries make it difficult to afford your own home in Douglas County. We have a high quality of life in Douglas County and our housing reflects this, but if the people that protect and educate our community cannot afford a home then there is a problem. I am looking into a couple of solutions to these issues. What kind of incentives can be given to developers in order for them to build homes that are "affordable" for the public service sector or other hard working individuals? As a commissioner I would look into possibly creating an affordable TDR incentive that would offer builders an increased number of density units if they agree to build more attainable housing. Also, I would work with the Nevada State Legislature to develop ways to ease the property tax burden for the men and women providing essential service to our county. As a commissioner I will do my best to facilitate such action with all the appropriate community entities to address this issue that I have personally faced.
District 5
Epstein: The Nevada Rural Housing Authority does provide favorable interest rates to first-time home buyers (someone who hasn't purchased a home in the last three years). The county should provide fair compensation that is comparable to other like communities. Public safety enhances our quality of life and we need to keep our wages and benefit packages competitive.
Olson: It has always been my philosophy that our community's professional service personnel should live in the community they are there to protect. I would much rather have a deputy thinking about Douglas County during a regional emergency that his family in Lyon County. I encourage that future development should afford an area of attainable housing in good areas and good quality, starter homes for new families at attainable prices.
Posselt: This issue is not restricted to the sheriff's deputies, but teachers and other county employees as well. There are several way to address the situation and I would look at those which would not increase taxes or drain the budget. One such tool available is revenue bonds to use the county's low interest rate to provide low interest loans to those individuals " interest is the majority a home loan monthly cost. This type of plan which is at no cost to the taxpayers has been very successful for our veterans. Another tool is for the county to actually purchase homes using revenue bonds and then rent them to the employees " perhaps with an option to buy. The county would then expect to receive any profits if and when the home is sold on the open market and use that money to expand the program. This should be one of the objectives of the economic development plan I proposed.
Thiel: No response
