In Carson: Group founded to defeat V&T tax

A new group says a ballot initiative to raise sales taxes for the proposed V&T Railway project would be an unjustified use of taxes and should be rejected.

The Citizens Alliance for No V&T Tax will have its first meeting tonight. Leaders Dan Mooney and Dave Campbell want to hear ideas on how to spread their message.

Both Mooney and Campbell said they don't know why supervisors agreed to put the plan on the November ballot, because voters have already told City Hall they oppose spending taxes on the V&T. An initiative to raise sales taxes a quarter-cent was narrowly defeated in the early 1990s.

"If the V&T was a good risk," Mooney said, "private capital would have assumed (it) a long time ago."

The city has already given $21 million to the $55 million project through a one-eighth cent sales tax supervisors passed in 2005 and a room tax approved by the Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2002.

The new V&T plan would give $10 million to the V&T tourist train project through a one-eighth cent sales tax in exchange for 5 percent of ticket sales over 99 years. Voters' decision on the advisory question is a non-binding suggestion to supervisors, who could choose to implement the tax if voters approve the measure.

Mayor Marv Teixeira, who will not seek a fourth term, has said he expects the plan to cost the average resident about $12 a year and pay for what the city's already given well after the sales tax sunsets around 2020.

But no money, no matter how much it will cost people, should be given to a private enterprise, Mooney said. He stressed that he supported the V&T project, but said it should simply be finished with private money as it was initially intended.

Campbell said the $10 million is also a bad idea because it won't be enough to finish the project and, when it is done, "we're not even going to own the darn thing."

But Teixeira, who developed the plan, said most people support the idea once they learn exactly how it works.

"This is going to shake out," he said. "It's a long time before the November election."

The plan is a "win-win" for Carson City, he said, because it will help finish the project and guarantee a return on the investment.

Arguments for and against the tax will appear with the ballot question. The clerk-recorder and district attorney will write the arguments because no one volunteered to write the opposing argument.

About a mile and a half of the V&T track from Gold Hill to the Overman Pit has been finished, and workers have started on about 4.5 miles from American Flat in Storey County south to Mound House in Lyon County, which is expected to be done in August.

The 18-mile track running from Virginia City to Carson City is scheduled to be done in 2011. A private company will operate the train.