Builder seeks District 1 commission seat

Gardnerville builder Greg Lynn has filed for the District 1 Douglas County Commission seat held by James Baushke.

"I want to see this be a viable place to live and work," he said. "What I want is to keep the lights on and move the county forward."

Lynn, 62, has lived in Carson Valley for 28 years and has run his general contracting business for 13 years.

"I can hear the howls that a builder would have the nerve to run for county commission," Lynn said. "But if I wanted to pave the Valley, I wouldn't have worked for 16 months meeting weekly on the growth management ordinance."

Lynn's connections with Carson Valley go back to before he was born when his mother learned to fly B-17 bombers as a ferry pilot.

She lived in the Reid Mansion, which is where they housed pilots.

"The first person I met when I came here was Brett Reed," he said. "I have a lifelong connection with Carson Valley."

Lynn said he felt the county is at a tipping point.

"We have a real opportunity," he said. "We have a new county manager, and the balance of power is undergoing a shift."

He said that the county will survive with the budget it has, but that next year's will be difficult to balance.

"I have no appetite for taxes or more government regulation," he said.

Lynn said he didn't want to be identified with any group.

"I'm trying to keep my hands clean, but that's not easy," he said. "The target here is to do what's best for Douglas County. We don't want to wind up like White Pine County, worrying about how we're going to keep the lights on."

Lynn said he was alarmed to see cuts from the senior services budget.

"I would rather spend 50 cents now than $50 later," he said. "But the county has had to make some hard choices."

He favors dedicating a county position to economic development.

"We all want high-paying low-polluting industries and we have to have some way to get them," he said.

Lynn said he felt a solution may one day have to be imposed on the airport.

"None of these issues are easy," he said. "We have to move soaring to the east side of the airport. Everyone is up in arms about Pinon Aero, but we need T-hangars are the airport. I'd love to see the return of the soaring community we had in the 1990s."

Lynn said he felt the county needs to finish writing its floodplain ordinance before it can tackle a clustering ordinance.

"Putting clustering in front of the floodplain ordinance is putting the cart before the horse," he said. "The county has never put together a comprehensive drainage plan, but that would cost $750,000 and we're already behind the eight-ball there."

Lynn is the owner of Greg Lynn Construction. His company is a regular sponsor of the Carson Valley Arts Council concerts and was named best building contractor by the readers of The Record-Courier. As a volunteer, Lynn built and repaired the Douglas County shooting range.