Voting on Reno’s Big Dig

The activist walks quickly up the driveway to catch a couple climbing into a Chevy Suburban.

“Hi there. I’m circulating a petition that would put the Reno trench to a vote of the public…”

He says no more.

“We’ll sign,” says Niki LaPlante, standing under the garage door of her northwest Reno home. “We’d like to vote on that.”

“It’s a $300 million waste of money,” adds her husband Ged. “They say it’ll cost $300 million, but it’ll come in more.”

Activist Mike Tracy doesn’t offer much comment on the trench, projected to cost more than $200 million, as he gets two more of the 9,011 signatures needed to get the ReTRAC issue on the Sept. 3 ballot. The goal is to force a public vote on the matter of constructing a 2.25-mile trench that would lower the tracks for Union Pacific trains going through downtown Reno.

Tracy has given up golf for the next few months to spend his Saturdays tramping around Reno, circulating petitions to interested business owners, coordinating the efforts of volunteers, manning an informational hotline and checking each signature he’s collected to make sure the individual is a registered voter in Reno.

If he’s successful and a vote is mandated, then the debate can begin, he says. Then “the cockroaches will have to scurry out from under the refrigerator because the light is shining down on them,” as he tells one interested neighbor.

Having both signed the petition, the LaPlantes hop into their SUV.

“Thank you for going around doing this,” Niki says.

Tracy smiles and happily heads down the street to the next house. One of the best benefits of going through a neighborhood door-to-door and talking about issues, he says, is that it gives you a feel for what people are thinking about. Tracy is impressed with how informed his neighbors are.

“There are some really smart people here who have great ideas on all sorts of issues,” Tracy says. “I’m really trying to get people to … get out of their houses and talk to their neighbors. Something happens when people talk face-to-face. It’s not like writing a letter to the editor.”

Not every neighbor is as receptive as the LaPlantes. Some say they haven’t followed the issue. Tracy gives them his phone number and says that, if they leave a message, he’ll call back with information and Web site links so they can learn more. One woman seems to think that signing implies some further voting requirement. A couple of men seemed both knowledgeable and opposed to the petition idea, curtly expressing disinterest when Tracy asks if they want to sign.

“No, I don’t,” one man says.

Tracy thanks the man politely. Walking down the sidewalk, he says, “You get that. Some of the guys in this neighborhood are in the construction industry. I wouldn’t expect them to sign.”

Knocking on neighbors’ doors is nothing new for Tracy. He creates a neighborhood newsletter and has helped to organize protests against a new housing development up the hill and against the building of a Wal-Mart in northwest Reno.

In December, Tracy helped out with the Christmas on the Corridor project, delivering toys and goodies to kids living in motels on Fourth Street. Tracy played Santa in the parade and then handed out toys while shouting, “Santa is here,” in a deep town-crier voice. He calls himself “the best ho-ho-hoer” in Reno.

In 2000, Tracy pounded the pavement as part of his campaign for the Reno City Council. He thinks everybody ought to run for public office—just to build awareness of the process.

“If we had 9,000 people file to run for mayor or City Council, we’d have 9,000 people more informed, and we’d have a better community for it,” he says.

To get the trench issue on the Sept. 3 ballot, Tracy and his cohorts need to obtain the signatures of 15 percent of 60,069 registered voters before April 5. Do the math and that comes out to 9,010.35 names. But you have to round up, Tracy notes. “If I get 9,010 signatures, it won’t get on the ballot.”

Tracy and others were driven to the option of a citizens’ initiative, he says, after “the council failed to do what they needed to do in October.” ReTRAC was a big issue in the last campaign for Reno City Council—and newly elected councilwomen Jessica Sferrazza-Hogan and Toni Harsh both supported putting the trench to a public vote.

“We were disappointed that it took as long as it did [after Harsh and Hogan were elected] to come before the council,” Tracy says. “But we haven’t been disappointed in their continued support. They’re holding to their campaign promises.”

Many elected officials, he says, have a hard time keeping promises.

“After they’re elected, they are flooded with information and details. That can overwhelm what they thought was important when they were campaigning, and I can understand that.”

One businesswoman who’s helping to circulate petitions says that this issue isn’t about the trench—whether it’s good or bad for Reno.

“This is a ‘right to vote’ petition,” says Margaret Flint, whose family owns Chapel of the Bells. “I want to be able to vote on issues that affect my community, and I want to be able to vote on how our city government decides how, when and where they are going to spend hard-earned tax dollars.”

But what of representational government? Don’t citizens hand over the right to make decisions on important issues when they elect representatives to public office? Given the political nature of the trench vote initiative, City of Reno trench spokesperson Gail Conners says it isn’t appropriate for the city to comment on the petition. And it’s not clear whether a public vote would doom the project that’s been years in the making, though several polls have shown a majority of voters are opposed to the trench.

Other major public spending projects are put to a vote, says Tracy, who mentions a recent parks-and-open-space bond, as well as the $80 million courthouse upgrade.

"[The trench] costs more than those combined,” Tracy says. “And they’re saying, ‘No, you can’t vote on it.’ I can’t find the logic in that.”

Before hitting the pavement on Saturday morning, Tracy had confirmed about 100 signatures—leaving only 8,911 to go. In the space of an hour hiking through his neighborhood, though, he’d gathered nine more names.

On Friday, a woman named Wanda called him from a ranch supply store. She asked for another petition since she’d already filled one 16-signature form.

” ‘You guys are missing signatures,’ she told me, and I didn’t even know she’d had a petition,” Tracy says as he walks up to another neighbor’s home. “So I went by and left four or five more there.”

A woman answers the door in a big puffy robe and slippers.

“I’m circulating a petition to put the Reno train trench issue to a public vote,” Tracy begins.

“I can’t think of a bigger waste of money,” the woman says, taking the clipboard. She signs and thanks Tracy for all his work.

“This is too much fun,” Tracy says, walking away from the house. He’s confident that he’ll get the needed signatures in time.

“I think we’ll get 13,000. I think we’ll have to cut it off before April."