Nevada’s Capitol, which was closed on weekends because of budget cuts during the recession, will re-open to weekend visitors on Saturday.
Capitol Police Chief Jerome Tushbant said the building will be open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. starting Saturday to see how much public interest there is in visiting during the weekends.
The building was historically open to tourists and other members of the public on weekends but was closed about eight years ago as a cost-saving measure.
Tushbant said it will initially open just Saturday with one Capitol police officer and one private security officer on duty to help visitors. He said they did the combination because they could do it immediately without having to hire more police officers to staff the weekends.
He said if the open visitation is well received and popular with people, they’ll see about expanding access.
“We’ll see what the demand is,” he said.
Over the years, visitors often knocked on the front entrance during the weekends, many disappointed no one answered and visitors who were only in town for a day or so were unable to tour the Capitol.
The upstairs museum, which is scheduled for a major remodel in the near future, will be open for guests but the Old Assembly Chambers will be closed because of the expensive video-conferencing and computer equipment in that room.
