Trench in the balance

The chairs were full and people were standing along walls in the Silver Legacy Resort Casino’s Convention Center last week, as the dignitaries took center stage to formally sign the train-trench contract between the city of Reno and Granite Construction.

Mayor Jeff Griffin gave the opening remarks as he introduced the team that will dig a 2.1-mile, $264 million, reinforced-concrete ditch through downtown Reno, transform the city to a garden paradise and re-energize the Truckee Meadows.

“This is an historic moment,” Griffin said. The crowd agreed. This was ReTRAC’s moment, a glowing vision. While there were a few skeptics in the audience, there were far and away more supporters—mostly not the pin-striped lawyers in Italian leather shoes who have been so prominent in Reno City Council Chambers, but the leather-handed, craggy-faced men who actually build things like bridges and trenches.

On the dais, Griffin unwittingly promoted Granite Construction’s chief operating officer, William Dorey, to chief executive officer.

“Hey,” he said by way of apology, “I’m only a politician for two months, three weeks and four days—my wife, Marna, can tell you how many hours.”

There can be no doubt that ReTRAC will be Griffin’s crowning achievement—if the project comes in on time and on budget. He’s only one of many who want to see the train tracks lowered. It will also be his legacy, should it fail. The city has already spent tens of millions on the project and will be liable for tens of millions more if it backs out of the contract.

There are those in the neighborhood, however, who would like to see the words, “Project ReTRAC,” engraved on Jeff Griffin’s headstone.

It is a fact that the project could still be killed, although it’s unlikely to happen before Granite Construction starts getting shovels dirty beginning with the groundbreaking scheduled for mid-September. But there’s an election coming up; the primary is Sept. 3, and the general election is Nov. 5. And, even if Nevada’s Supreme Court doesn’t give Reno voters a chance to give the project a thumbs-up or –down, Reno voters will decide the trench’s fate.

How likely is it that the project will be killed based on the results of upcoming elections?

“I honestly don’t think it will happen,” said David Aiazzi, “but I don’t know. People can change their minds.”

Stranger things have happened. Since only one vote on the Reno City Council has to change—most votes on the trench have been 4-3, with Griffin, Aiazzi, Pierre Hascheff, and Sherrie Doyle in favor and David Rigdon, Toni Harsh and Jessica Sferrazza opposed—the possibility exists for an about-face on ReTRAC.

There are three council seats, including the mayor’s, Ward 2 and Ward 4, up for grabs this year. David Rigdon, Ward 2 incumbent, has been hard to predict on the trench issue. While apparently undecided early on, his rhetoric has turned increasingly anti-trench, so has his vote.

“David Rigdon told me that if the bids came in in an amount we could afford, he’d vote in favor,” said Griffin. “He voted ‘no.’ He lied to me.”

Of Rigdon’s opponents, Shawn McDowell and Sharon Zadra both support the trench.

“I would support the council’s decision that was made in July, and I would stand by the contract that was signed,” Zadra said.

Ward 4 is more muddled. Incumbent Doyle, as mentioned, has voted consistently for the trench. Kendall Stagg has also made it clear he supports the trench contract. Dwight Dortch reportedly supports the trench, in principle, but did not return phone calls. Ed Hawkins told the RN&R that, “You betcha,” he’d vote to kill the trench—if it is legal and will save taxpayer money. Julie Sferrazza has said she would support whatever position the public takes when it votes on the trench advisory question, but she did not return phone calls, either.

Martin Crowley has taken a similarly politic but indecisive middle track. “It would depend on the citizen advisory vote on the November ballot—the same ballot that I hope to be on. If the citizens say they don’t want a trench, then as their elected representative, I would have an obligation to follow their view on that, including rescinding the contract.”

Many candidates have said they will base their policies on how the public votes on the project, but at this point that’s the same as not expressing a position. Washoe County’s advisory question, WC-7, will appear on the November ballot, when, depending on how the Supreme Court rules, the binding citizens’ initiate question could also appear. It’s clear that many candidates believe, when given the opportunity, the public will vote against the trench.

In the mayor’s race, a vote for Mike Robinson is a vote against the trench, since his candidacy is based on opposition to the project. Although he may say otherwise.

Dwight Brose’s candidate sheet on the Washoe County Registrar of Voters’ Web site suggests he does not support the trench, but he could not be reached for specific comment. Chad Dehne, who said he supports a public vote on the trench, would have to consider the cost to taxpayers if the contract is broken, but he wasn’t specifically inclined to vote against the project if elected. Casino owner and former Lt. Gov. Bob Cashell has said he favors a public vote on the trench if the Supreme Court allows it, but he wouldn’t work to kill it if elected. Neither Ken Haller nor Andrew Putnam returned calls at deadline, nor provided position statements to the Registrar of Voters’ Web site.

It can be assumed that a vote for H. Tom Orrell isn’t a vote for courteous relations between opposing factions.

“In the old days, Jeff and these guys, we would have strung them out on an old tree,” Orrell told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I do believe in capital punishment, and I do think they ought to be taken out and strung up.”

The sad thing about that quote is that it’s not unrepresentative of the “debate” surrounding the train trench. Hascheff and Doyle received threatening phone calls the day before the contract vote, but political disagreements, no matter how heated, aren’t generally cause for a public lynching.

In the final analysis, voters who want to kill the trench project, and are without interest in other issues, can vote like this: Mike Robinson or H. Tom Orrell for mayor; incumbent David Rigdon in Ward 2; and Martin Crowley, Ed Hawkins or Julie Sferrazza in Ward 4. Again, since some of these candidates said they are waiting for results of public votes, it’s hard to predict what they’ll do.

Voters who back the trench can vote for Bob Cashell or, maybe, Chad Dehne in the mayor’s race. In Ward 2, Sharon Zadra and Shawn McDowell have committed to support of the trench contract. In Ward 4, voters have a choice among Sherrie Doyle, who is under felony indictment for theft of campaign funds, Dwight Dortch, whose late property tax payments and campaign contribution questions [See News, page 9] have plagued his campaign, or Kendall Stagg.

As far as soon-to-be-former mayor Jeff Griffin goes, he’s confidant that Project ReTRAC will be his crowning legacy.

“In five years, we’ll be standing over the completed project, and people will say, ‘What were we arguing about?'" he said. "And people who were against it will say, ‘I was there for you.' "