Republican Mike Clark and Democrat Keith Lockard squared off in a debate Wednesday over election integrity, public safety, homelessness and growth.
They are vying to see who will replace incumbent Bob Lucey in the Washoe County Commission's District 2 seat, which represents south Reno and Washoe Valley.
Clark — the current county assessor — bested Lucey in the Republican primary. Lockard is a retired traffic and transportation engineer with city and county governments.
The debate was a partnership between the Reno Gazette Journal and Sam Shad’s Nevada Newsmakers, co-moderated by Shad and me, the RGJ's local government reporter. See more scheduled debates here.
Below are three takeaways from the debate and a transcript. You can watch the debate at the video link at the top of this article or at nevadanewsmakers.com. You can also listen on your favorite podcast platform by searching for “Nevada Newsmakers.”
• Election integrity: Lockard and Clark had the most disagreement on Washoe County’s election process. Lockard feels the system is working well as is. Clark doesn’t have confidence in the voter rolls and thinks they need an audit for accuracy because their integrity is the foundation of good elections.
• Public safety: Clark wants more law enforcement on the street because he thinks crime is through the roof and people don’t think downtown Reno is safe. He also wants more firefighters. Lockard’s top safety issue is the wildfire threat and wants to see more support for Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District.
• Homelessness: Lockard says the county’s homeless efforts are still a work in progress, but that the Nevada Cares Campus emergency shelter is basically functioning well. Clark isn’t sure the shelter is being run well and hears people perceive it as unsafe, which makes them less likely to use its services.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Sam Shad: Back on Nevada Newsmakers, we're delighted to have another debate on the program today. I'm joined by Mark Robison who is with Reno Gazette Journal — and does a wonderful job, by the way — and we're debating Washoe County Commission District 2. Mike Clark is currently the Washoe County Assessor and he's the Republican. Keith Lockhart is retired, but spent 40 years as a civil traffic and transportation engineer for city and county governments. Welcome to you both, and we look forward to a great debate. We've set up the terms of the debate, so let's launch right in.
Mark Robison: Based on the coin toss, Mike, the first question goes to you. If given the opportunity to vote whether Washoe County switches to the hand-counting of ballots and away from voting machines, will you vote in favor of switching to hand-counting of ballots?
Mike Clark: I think hand-counting is appropriate at certain times, but it just depends on the certain situation.
Robison: And Keith, what would you do?
Keith Lockard: For a county this size, hand-counting is OK, but that takes us back to about 1840 in terms of technology. Ballots today are both electronic and printed, and there is full security for voting in balloting in Washoe County.
Shad: I'd like to just follow up and then we can get this out of the way. So do you (Clark) have confidence in the election system that we have in place now with the voting machines and you're not looking — I would hope — at filing lawsuits before the election even occurs.
Clark: I'm not looking to file any lawsuits, but as the assessor, it's very important to have accurate roles. The assessor’s rolls, I think, are probably 99% accurate. I think the treasurer's rolls are very accurate. I can assure you that the treasurer can find anybody that taxes are owed. I don't know about the foundational basis for the voter rolls. I think that they can be cleaned up. I think that there's people maybe on the roles that shouldn't be there. I think that the medical examiner has got information which should be shared. I think the assessor has got information that should be shared. I think that the treasurer has information that you shouldn't be shared with the registrar of voters to clean up the rolls to make sure that there's accuracy there. I think the public has a right to have that knowledge — do we have accurate roles?
Instead of asking about counting the ballots by hand, I think the foundational basis is the voter rolls. Let's make sure those are accurate. If they're accurate, they should be shared with everybody. What I see the county doing is saying “We're right, you're wrong — and how dare you ask that I'd like to see some evidence that the rolls are accurate.”
Shad: But you've seen everybody from the Secretary of State on down throughout the counties and the cities, all saying that we have integrity within our election system. And people that shouldn't have voted, which there was a case of one that was actually confirmed, haven't actually occurred.
Clark: We've also seen evidence that there are multiple registered voters at businesses, which is not allowed. There's numerous situations that I've heard of where vacant lots have got people registered to vote. I’d just like to look at that. If that's accurate, let's clean it up.
Shad: Okay, so you're not saying it's accurate, you're saying that that's what you've heard, right? But you don't have evidence to show it.
Clark: I'm not in that position yet. But by getting the position, that’s one of the first things I’ll do is audit those voter rolls.
Shad: Keith, do you want to rebut that?
Lockard: There have been numerous lawsuits against the company that manufactures the voting machines, and all of those have failed. It has been demonstrated that the machines worked properly in the voting process. And there were numerous challenges in the past election, and none of those produced any meaningful results that there was any problem with the voting process in Nevada two years ago. I'm satisfied with what was done two years ago. And I am pleased that we will have the leadership in the county and in the state with the voting process coming up in a few months.
Shad: You (Clark) have anything to add?
Clark: Sure. I haven’t mentioned anything about a machine. I didn't mention anything about the courts. I'm talking about accuracy of the rolls. That's the foundational basis of all voting. You can hand count, you can use a machine, you can do anything you want to as long as the foundational basis is accurate. I understand it's not accurate. That's what I hear. And until proven differently, I think the question is, Are they accurate rolls?
Shad: All right, let's move on. Keith, growth is obviously going to be the biggest issue for the district. What are your thoughts on growth? Should we allow the growth as it's been going to continue? Should we be looking to limit growth? There are some that say that if you're not growing, you're falling behind. What's your position?
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Lockard: People are concerned about growth because they see the buildings, they see the traffic, they see vacant land where they used to have a view is disappearing. But private property owners have the right to develop their land, and county government, city government, regulate that. It needs to be done in a proper balanced manner with appropriate conditions. And we need to have an appropriate amount of economic growth and development because that is where our revenue comes from. That sustains the services that we provide to the people through Washoe County. Think of the communities in the East that have lost population, that have become derelict. Not having the tax revenue is totally detrimental to being able to provide community services.
Shad: Do you (Clark) want to take the same question, what's your position on growth?
Clark: We need sustainable growth. We need to address the issues of water and pollution and transportation. We need growth, people are used to living indoors. Also, I don't think we can build our build our way out of the housing shortage. We've had a housing shortage here. As the assessor, I can look back to the roles from when we had our economic downturn here for 7, 8, 9, 10 years. We used to build about 3,000 single family homes on a regular basis. But during that time — an eight-year period — we did not build the houses that way. So there's about 20 to 24,000 homes that never got built. We can't get in a time machine and go back and build those properties. But we didn't have building going on here for a number of years. So the numbers are down and then when that happened, the tradespeople left the area — the plasterers, the roofers, the framers, the electricians. So now we've got a housing shortage. We've got a worker shortage of skilled craftsmen, tradesmen, union people that build houses, and they're not available. And now the prices of materials are through the roof. I was talking to a builder the other day; he said the base price just for the lumber on building his property was about $25,000. Now it's over $60,000.
Shad: Let me let me pause you there and give you (Lockard) 30 seconds to rebut.
Lockard: The last several years my long career with the city of Reno, I managed and regulated new development and I started the regional road impact fee system that results in developers paying for major roadway improvements. I acted in the public interest to assure that new development was properly conditioned, that their impacts were mitigated by the conditions we placed on them.
Robison: So Mike, going along that same topic, what can the Washoe County Commission do — or should it do anything — to incentivize the building of more affordable housing and starter homes?
Clark: Well, I'm not a commissioner yet, but if I'm lucky enough to make that transition, I'd like to look at the actual cost to developers for the permits for their inspections. I'd like to see if we can streamline the permitting process. Builders tell me now it's anywhere from three to five years from the conception of a development till they build it — and time is money and that gets passed along to the consumer. So if we can streamline that process and stay within the laws and make sure that all the building codes are met, I think that’s one of the ways you can save money and help this development issue and transition into a smoother flow if we can do that.
Lockard: I’ve done that with the city of Reno and our community development department. We went through all of our procedures to shorten those procedures to make it easy for developers to move through the process because time is money for those builders. We developed processes that did not unduly delay them but at the same time, we still protected the public interest through our review process.
Shad: Do you (Clark) want to comment on that?
Clark: He may have tried to streamline the building process or the permitting process but the problem still remains the same. If you talk to any builder, one of their biggest drawbacks to any development is time — time in the planning and permitting process. So we need to streamline it even further.
Robison: Keith, you're up next. A reader named Nancy asked me to ask in this debate what you would do to make Washoe County safer.
Lockard: The crime in Washoe County is a concern to people, but the sheriff is independently elected and manages the sheriff's department independent of the Washoe County Commission. The Washoe County Commission has one employee — the county manager — and I'm assuming that deals with crime.
The safety that may be of concern may be related to traffic safety. I managed traffic safety programs, both with the city of Reno and other jurisdictions to reduce safety to reduce injuries and deaths.
I don't know if that relates to fire safety. That's my number-one concern is responding to wildfire threat. Our Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District and emergency services providers need seamless communication, they need proper training, they need the appropriate equipment and they need adequate staffing. So she wasn't specific as to (what kind of) safety, so I'm not sure if that was, crime, traffic, wildfire threat or maybe falling down in your home.
Clark: As far as public safety, I support law enforcement as much as possible. I think we need more sheriff's deputies on the beat. I think we need more firefighters out there. So I think we need to hire professional law enforcement folks to patrol and just more bodies on the street. The population has grown tremendously around here.
I just had a meeting last night I was talking with Pete Sferrazza (candidate for Reno Municipal Court judge Department 3). He said that the level of law enforcement is back to 1988. So apparently we don't have enough law enforcement out there patrolling the streets. The crime rate is up. I was downtown on Sunday myself and heard gunshots and walked across the river and there was a dead person lying right on the City Hall steps. So that's a concern for folks here that the crime rate is going through the roof. I don't think folks feel comfortable going to downtown areas, and we need to address that.
Shad: I will point out that the sheriff is running for re-election without any opposition. So it seems like the general populace didn't want to put anybody else up against him. Let's talk about sewer, Mike. If we're gonna have an issue with growth, sewer is going to be the biggest thing to stop it. What are your thoughts on how we should fund expansion of the sewer treatment plant or do other things to be able to allow growth to continue?
Clark: It's our responsibility to return water back to the Truckee River as clean as when we take it out and I don't think that's happening. So sewer treatment plants are going to be needed to clean up that water.
Shad: Excuse me, may I just interrupt for a second. So you don't feel that the current sewer plant operation is working adequately at this time? I don't see complaints from the tribe.
Clark: If we're going to have future growth, we're going to have to have more capacity. Absolutely. That's what I'm talking about: greater capacity if we're going to continue to have growth. So that is an issue we need to figure out.
Shad: And your thoughts on that? Because that will be right in your lap.
Clark: It's going to be funded by growth and developer fees and so forth. But we need to sharpen our pencil on a lot of budget items and see how we can find the funds to do what we need to do.
Shad: Yeah, it's a huge billion-dollar project. Don't you think the general populace is going to have to contribute as well?
Clark: We'll figure out how to do it.
Shad: OK, same question to you.
Lockard: As a professional engineer with the city of Reno, that was always an issue with new development. Of course, the treatment plant by the Truckee River is operated by a joint powers agreement. I knew the people who operated that. It involves a considerable amount of physical improvements that one might expect federal funding for. But also, on the development side, those developers pay a specific fee before they build their homes to pay for sewage treatment. That involves the major improvements that are necessary and consistent with that new development.
Shad: But it appears from all my discussions with elected officials that the money is not sufficient to do the expansion that’s needed to continue the growth in the area, which continues to be staggering.
Lockard: It's an issue that we'll be dealing with. This is an element of community need. If I'm elected to the commission, as an engineer, I'm able to understand the kinds of needs and look at how we do move toward achieving funding for it because I’ve done that before in looking at how we got funding for our library system to improve their facilities when there was no other particular source to do it.
Robison: Keith, the county is now fully in charge of the emergency shelter for people who are homeless in our community. What would you change regarding how the county handles homelessness?
Lockard: I think that is still a work in progress. What we are going to see on Oct. 25 is that the Washoe County Board of Commissioners is going to receive a full report on homelessness and how the care center is operating. I don't think it's a point in time that I can say this is what the fix is for that particular improvement. We've seen a homeless numbers double in the past year. In June, if I have the numbers, correct, 768 beds were occupied and there were only 20 beds available. It's a serious issue. But the functioning is correct and sense of working to get those people clean, sober, ready for employment, that they're following the rules…
Shad: I'm gonna have to hold you to time there just because we are running out. So, Mike, your response to the same question.
Clark: My response is I'm not sure that the Cares Campus is being run properly. There's folks that I've talked to who are afraid to go there. They think this is a real survival-of-the-fittest there. The drug sales, the violence — I think that county should have ways to clean that up and make sure it's a safe place to go. If you're trying to get people off the streets and you're trying to send them to a place that they don't feel safe, you're going to have a lot of reluctance of folks going there.
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Shad: Isn't that the responsibility of the sheriff's department or RPD (Reno Police Department)?
Clark: I understand they have security guards there instead of actual law enforcement. And what I hear is that folks are afraid to go there. We've got about 1,850 to 2,000 homeless people in our area — I don't know if that's an accurate census or not. But about $60 to $70 million has been spent on the homeless, and it's only worse now than it was before.
Shad: And that's where we have to call time. Thank you both very much for participating. Good luck on the campaign trail.
Mark Robison covers local government for the Reno Gazette-Journal, as well as writes Fact Checker and Ask the RGJ articles.
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