Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, August 14, 1997 9
Freedom on hold in Nye County, Nevada
by Brent Mathewson
Americans today regard themselves, and are taught from
early childhood to regard themselves, as the freest people on
the planet earth. This assumption is generally agreed to and
recognized by most people of all other nations.
My family moved to southern Nevada in 1945 when I was
quite a young person. As I was growing up my father use to
explain to me that the greatest thing about living in Nevada
was that citizens of this great state enjoyed more freedom than
those of any other state in the union. This thought was welded
into my brain and I knew it to be true.
One right that a people must have in any free society is
freedom of the press. To whatever degree this tight is deni-
grated or abridged a people will be less free.
In all western societies of the modern world the right and
ability to own land without undue government interference
and regulation is a bedrock cornerstone right against which all
)other freedoms can be measured and meaningfully compared.
Nevada law, as expressed in the Nevada Revised Statutes,
has recognized this crucial point since statehood and it is for
this reason that the NRS carefully and clearly limits a govern-
ing body of this state in regards to improvements which may
be imposed by such a governing body when land is parcelled
or to be sold. In addition a Nevada land owner has certain
other rights when it comes to the subject of water. For
instance: if you own a net acre or more of land, anywhere in
the state of Nevada, and that land is not being supplied with
a source of water from some other entity, you have an absolute
right to poke a hole in the ground, pay your money and take
your chances, and see if you cannot reach an underground
source and supply yourself with enough water to service a
domestic residential well. No edict, phoney or otherwise,
from the state engineer's office claiming that a particular
water basin's water rights have been over allocated can legally
deprive you of this right.
The Nye County Commission's present policy, written
into what is being enforced as law, requiring a landowner to
have or purchase water rights and then give those water tights
to the state before allowing parcelling of land to take place, in
complete and total violation of Nevada law. Water rights in
Nevada are regarded the same as real property and can only
be lost by failing to put them to beneficial use within a
required period of time.
To burden a landowner with the enormous costs of pur-
chasing water rights and then forcing him to give those tights
away before parceling his land only serves to increase the cost
of playing the game, thus limiting the amount of available
players. This is of course the true purpose and intent behind
the regulation. The playing field has been effectively limited
to large land developers alrfady in possession of thousands of
small acreage lots and a handful of land developers with deep
enough pockets that the requirement is not a hindrance. They
will get their investment back many, many times over by
building high density housing.
Nye County Commissioner, Cameron McRae, has stated
that this requirement is necessary, for without it, on any given
square mile of land you could end up with 640 new water
rights being created. If such a situation were allowed to exist,
he says, then before long you would suck all the water out of
the valley and laahrump would dry up and blow away in the
wind.
McRae's argument does not hold water. To see this point
clearly let's imagine a land owner with a five acre parcel of
land. If such a landowner could economically split this parcel
in half then two 2 1/2 acre homesites could be created. Each
2 1/2 acre homesite would come with the legal right to drill a
domestic well. On the other hand, if this same five acre parcel
could only be economically developed by building high
density housing, then this city block size property would end
up with 24 homesites on it. Twelve on each side of the street.
Under which scernario are you going to use the most water?
Road improvement requirements that have been imposed
by the Nye County Commission since the early 1990s are
another critical example of your freedom and rights as a
landowner in Nevada being trashed and ignored, When one
!11 acre lots or greater in size are being created and no more than
four lots are involved, the absolute maximum road improve-
ment that may be required is limited to whatever type of road
is in use on property zoned for similar use and within 660 feet
of the proposed parcel. Attorney General opinions on record
historically agree with this point.
The related topics that have been touched on so far in this
article by no means include all the violations of NRS that have
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been written into Nye County and Pahrump Regional Plan-
ning Commission (PRPC) parcel map regulations, but they
do cover some of the high points. It is important for the reader
to realize that for about 125 years all Nevada citizens enjoyed
the freedoms and rights that went along with Nevada land
laws that corresponded with those passed by the Nevada
THIS MAN'S OPINION
by Brent Mathewson :
Legislature. All Nevada citizens except I
those living in Nye County still do.
Before we go further, another impor- :;
rant thing to recognize is that for all the ::::::
booming growth that has taken place in
this state in the last 50 years, including that in Clark and
Washoe County, that growth took place, and is taking place,
in a fashion and atmosphere that corresponded and still
corresponds to the spirit, intent and letter of Nevada law.
Because of this all Nevada citizens, other than those living
in Nye County, who have a spark of the adventuresome, a
touch of the entrepreneurial, a.streak of the capitalist running
through their blood, have the freedom and the right, to reach
out and take a chance, to speculate, to gamble if you will, to
'buy relatively small acreage parcels of land in relatively
undeveloped areas, to think it out as best they can and make
an affordable bet, to reap the rewards and build a nest egg for
the future when they guess right, and to have the freedom to
guess wrong.
All arguments presented by the Nye County Commission
in defense of the illegal parcel map regulations that have been
written by the highest level people in Nye County Adminis-
tration are nothing but more BS of the highest order.
The proof of this fact is the Nye County Commission and
administrative staffs complete unwillingness to present the
questions involved to the Nevada Attorney General's office
for resolution as has been recently requested by the Pahrump
Planning Commission. They would rather be sued, as they
undoubtedly will be. After all, they have what they consider
the unlimited resources of the Nye County Treasury to pay for
and hire outside council to delay and obstruct justice for many
years to come in this matter.
That is this man's opinion.
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