February 07, 2007
Editorial

Fire District A Hot Potato

It looked so good and simple on paper.

The reality was a mess.

Monday’s inaugural meeting for the newly-created Panaca Fire District turned into a cluster jumble full of typographical errors, agenda items made useless by rotating bank balances, and cumbersome technicalities in the law which tied the board’s hands on what should have been simple decisions.

While it would be easy to point fingers, the truth is that it isn’t really anybody’s fault.

It’s the nature of the beast.

Anytime you create a new government bureaucracy, you’re going to have organizational difficulties the first time around.

Add in the Byzantine labyrinth of cumbersome and tedious laws residing on the books of the Nevada Revised Statutes, and you have all the ingredients for a meltdown.

In this instance, it’s even more distressing because the NRS ignores what should be on page one of every law book in America:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The Panaca Volunteer Fire Department has been clicking along nicely over the last 20 years, growing from one second-hand fire truck to its current inventory of a half-dozen vehicles.

Now, the proverbial wheel is in the process of being reinvented as the Lincoln County Commission has taken control of the organization and expanded its borders.

New contracts are needed, financial accounts must be changed, and a new governing body that does a good job of running the county but with no firefighting experience has been tasked with running the Fire District.

Another of the problems is that their tenure is legally set at 10 years.

Instead of piling one more unwieldy task on an already overburdened governmental body, the smart thing would be to develop a separate elected board for the Fire District much like the hospital board.

It would take a ballot measure to allow such a board to be formed and bypass the 10-year rule.

That idea should be one of the first things the new board takes up in the coming months.

Our County Commissioners are honorable, dedicated, and enormously hard-working individuals.

But it’s unrealistic to expect them to do everything, especially in a community like ours that is exploding in growth.

When stretched that far, things begin falling through the cracks.

The security of homes and businesses against fire is too important to be a jurisdictional step-child.

It also doesn’t help when the meetings which decide major issues affecting the Panaca area are handled in Pioche, in the middle of the day when most of the folks to be serviced and taxed for this district are working and can’t attend or have a say.

It sets the table for resentment and discord.

Fortunately, the Lincoln County Commission is filled with smart people.

Hopefully, they’ll do the smart thing and make it a priority to put this agency into the hands of local people with the skills, background, and time to give it the attention it deserves.

Besides, they deserve the break.