The Urban Blog

Reno’s Spectacular Halloween Blowout!

I was in Reno for some personal business this weekend and had the luck to be out and about on Friday night, which was Halloween.  Now, I am costume challenged.  I always have been, and during those times since becoming an adult, I have thanked my lucky stars for being a Nevadan, so that I can plead Nevada Day as the reason I am not wearing a costume.  “Halloween?  What’s that?” I’ll say, and then especially when I’m not in Nevada, I have the opportunity to tell a stranger a story, and possibly even sing a song.  Not a perfect replacement for a stranger seeing me dressed up as something clever, but at least I’m trying to do something entertaining.

Which makes me not really notice Halloween most of the time.  In Seattle, where I hang my hat the majority of the time, the neighborhood I live in which is full of hipsters and homos some of whom are both, certainly puts on a costume for the day, and I get to dress up vicariously through much more clever people, who may have actually remembered all summer long the flash of inspiration they had that one day in May, and worked to assemble all the pieces well enough in advance that perhaps all they need to buy is makeup.

I’ve no conscious memory of Reno ever having done that in the past, however.  Carson City is pretty famous for its Halloween displays and trick or treating at the governor’s mansion.  But Reno has never appeared quite so inspired… or family friendly.

This year, however, was different on at least one count.  It seems as though a sizable percentage of the city’s adult population decided to dress up, and then having done so, to go downtown and really make a scene.  Driving & walking around downtown Reno on Friday night reminded me of my one and only trip to Boston, which coincided with Halloween.  Boston takes this affair very seriously.  People are in costume for about a week, it seems.

All manner of folks were out in force that night in Reno, and it probably had at least something to do with Halloween being on a Friday.  The skies were clear, the weather was good, and the spirits were high.  Take note, Biggest Little City.  Halloween in Reno (or Nevada Day, officially celebrated on the Friday closest to the 31st) should acquire an infamous regional reputation.  People should come from far and wide to don their best costume and have a blast roaming the streets of downtown, crowding the gambling tables with their costumed selves and generally having one hell of a good time.

If you say “but Halloween won’t be on Friday every year!” I need only remind you that when I was a kid, we trick or treated on the 30th, so we could sleep off our candy hangover on the 31st.  There’s precedent.  You all know what to do next year.  I’ll be watching.

The Urban Blog On Transportation Measures

It’s not every day a person sees their name in the newspaper, but I saw mine in the paper today.  It’s ok, it’s for a good reason.  I wasn’t arrested.

I was quoted in the Reno News & Review this week in a piece regarding some Washoe County transportation ballot measures.  I’ve written a fair bit about those subjects here, so it was nice to be contacted by the story’s author.  After dipping my toe into the water of talking about current affairs vis-a-vis the ballot box by making a presidential endorsement, here’s a roundup of the transportation-related ballot measures affecting both Reno and Seattle.

Reno

WC-2 Sales Tax Increase for Public Transit

Yes

As I said in the RNR, everyone could end up on the bus at some point.  Cars are great, I like having one, but cars break, and people still have to get to work.  People still have lives to live with independence.  A good bus system goes a long way toward keeping everything moving.

RTC Ride isn’t a perfect bus service.  In fact, if this blog were going to the ballot with a transit measure, we’d be pretty specific about the improvements in service that would be made, and we’d ask for all the money we’d need.  Our bus service would feature 15-minute headways on 80% of the routes during 12 hours of the day and no less than 30-minute headways on all routes in the system.  Express buses would run all day, every day, between Reno, Sparks, Fernley, Spanish Springs, North Valleys via TRIC, and Carson City.

Turns out they’re not giving buses away, and bus drivers need food and shelter.  So this would cost a pretty penny.

Alas, The Urban Blog’s new bus system isn’t on the ballot this year in Washoe County, and with service cuts looming in the wake of some other service cuts, it does make sense to go ahead and raise the sales tax an eight of a percent bringing the total sales tax rate to 7.5%.

WC-5 Gas Tax Indexing Advisory Question

Yes

If The Urban Blog were running the show, gas tax would be used primarily for the operation of public highway facilities and excise tax would be the way public highway facilities were paid for.  That way, every time you registered your car, you could see line items to tell you about the bonds you’re paying off, and you could see their expiration date.  Suddenly major public facilities such as a road between Sparks and South Meadows or a Spanish Springs Freeway or a US-50 East Freeway, would now have an established, dedicated funding mechanism.

The Urban Blog is not running the show, but in our ideal system we figure we’d probably want our operational budget to account for inflation.  This measure merely lets the RTC know if they should go to the Legislature to ask for the gas tax to be indexed to inflation.  So even though it pains us to say it, this measure should pass.

Seattle

Initiative 985 Traffic Signal Timing & Other Assorted Related Items

No

The bane of the existences of many Washington citizens is a guy by the name of Tim Eyman.  He’s forever getting stuff put on the ballot that sounds great, would break three things to fix one, and usually gets invalidated by the court after it passes.  This measure is one of his.  It would siphon funds off from every transportation budget in the state to fund timing every traffic signal in the state, and would open the HOV lanes to general traffic considerably more than they are today.

The Seattle area is working on finally getting light rail service to its major destinations and for a while now has had great express bus service between major destinations and that express bus service depends largely on what I call the “bus freeway”, which provides all kinds of dedicated ramps and lanes for buses, carpools, and vanpools.  The HOV network should remain closed to general traffic most hours of the day.  Traffic in Seattle is wretched, and public transit ought to be on time.

Timing the traffic lights in the state is a great idea.  We’d support a measure that provides a dedicated funding source that doesn’t impact other budgets.  This is not that measure.  This measure is a turkey and needs to be voted down.

Sound Transit Proposition 1

HELL YEAH!

Sound Transit is the Seattle-area regional transit authority which operates the aforementioned express bus system, and is building the aforementioned light rail system, and also operates the regional commuter rail system.

In 2009 the first trains from downtown to the airport will begin operating, and that’ll be a glorious day.  Downtown Seattle has for many years had a tunnel running underneath it carrying buses.  When the tunnel was originally built, tracks were installed to carry the light rail trains they were going to purchase any day.  Turned out the tracks were not installed properly and the tunnel had to be closed for two years while they installed the track for THESE trains.  Once the initial segment to the airport is complete, another segment will begin construction linking downtown to the University District.

This measure would authorize the expansion of the system further, across Lake Washington to the technology and business havens of Bellevue and Redmond, and would also push transit further north from the University and south from the airport.  It would add to the commuter rail and express bus services.  In short, it would authorize the expansion of the regional public transit service to a point where its usefulness would be greatly improved.

And that’s why we say “HELL YEAH!” to this one.  The population of the tri-county area served by Sound Transit is about 3 million.  This is long overdue.

Way Ballpark Lookin

Reno Aces Ballpark Under Construction 10/18/08

Why Not More Casinos?

This is a response to this comment from Mike’s blog:

Posted by: Bugsy - 9/30/2008 4:08:52 PM
Im reading this and I feel both very excited and very upset. I am happy that the hotel is getting the complete makeover it desperatly needs, but I am also very upset that they are closing the casino part of the hotel. Why is the redevelopement agency trying to steer away from gaming downtown. Gaming is the life line of the city. Always have, always will. When the Indian casinos started popping up in California, Reno almost became a ghost town. That shows that this city is a gaming tourist city. Most people coming to visit, come to gamble. Every city in the United states have hotels, but only a few, including Reno, have hotels with casinos. The people who bought condos downtown, like myself, knew that they were going to be living within close proximaty of the casinos when the bought them. Gaming = Jobs. Mr Leal, You have established yourself a great and respectiful business leader here in downtown and I would "bet" that you have a very favorable appoval rating with the downtown residental and business owners (including myself). Don't tarnish your image by eliminating the casino jobs downtown, especially during these economic times.

The erstwhile reader will know that this blog occasionally dabbles in economics.  Economics is the study of many things; two of them are promise and permission.  It seems that in order to secure the latter, one must be willing and able to follow through on the former.  The promise is made by the consumer to pay, and the permission is received from the producer to provide.  But the permission the producer receives from the consumer – to extract the resource of potential from them, makes it a two way street.

Why is Reno a city at all?  It’s not for the casinos.  You may recall that Reno began life as a river crossing.  The Truckee’s gorge is not particularly deep, but it is certainly impassable by a wagon train.  When the bridge that is now the Virginia Street bridge was built over the river, it was built ultimately for economic advantage.  The thing standing between what the people wanted and them getting it, in this case, safe and easy passage over that river, was the man on one side of the bridge collecting a toll the travelers needed to pay to cross it.

That could only last so long.  When the railroad pushed through, what made Reno what it would become next was that infrastructure – that bridge – which enabled the free flow of goods and services from the mining camps of Virginia City to the outside world.  The value generated from that led to the creation of the V&T, which expedited the aforementioned process even further.  Supplementing the direct logistical value to the mining trade was the agriculture, which itself took advantage of the infrastructure built to help the colonization and the mineral extraction, respectively.

Reno – regional center of commerce and logistics, cared little about the shape and form of its moneymaking activities.  The attraction lay in something deeper – in the intrinsic value of the location.

When the mining petered out and finally the Great Depression brought the nation to its knees, legalizing the long existent underground activity of gambling was secondary, a side benefit really, to what Reno was already doing to build up its reputation.  The divorce trade, begun long before, was established with the goal of keeping outsiders coming to a region the perceived resource value of which was virtually zero by that point.

Now, a casino is a good business.  But economics is about things other than promise and permission.  It is about the efficient management of resources and potential.  The permission sought by all involved in this process is the permission to live a life unencumbered by barriers to getting the things we all need – shelter, food, clothing; and in a good economy, the permission to live a life where those three basic things are taken care of for everyone involved in the promise and permission game such that potential is also granted permission in the form of some sort of equity.

One thing a casino is certainly not about, at least to the consumer, is the efficient management of resources and potential.  You’ll note that I have thus far failed to mention money.  Money is an abstraction for all the factors of promise, permission, resource, and potential, a mutually agreed upon mechanism, a common language which we all use to know where we stand with regards to all four.

A business based around people squandering their extra potential granted to them in this game, and receiving a limitless bounty of expensive things just for participating, such as all you can eat prime rib for $7.99, is certainly not thinking about the efficient management of resource and potential from the consumer’s perspective.  It is instead based upon the suspension of the commonly agreed upon rules and a considerable amount of mutual taking advantage.

This is a liar’s game and unfortunately it catches up to the liars in the end.  Why was Reno shut down in the mid-90s?  Because the potential which had been pouring into Reno – the extra potential – was being redirected by the new people who were running the game.  Being redirected in all directions away from Reno until the only thing left were skeletons of once glamorous buildings and bitter people stamping out their cigarettes on other people’s carpet.

We would all love to see the glamorous days of Reno’s time as the gambling capital of the world return – just as I know because I have read it, that Mike would like to see the V&T running back down Holcomb Ave and I would like to see it running back through the hills of my own native Washoe Valley.  But who would ride the thing?  The tourists?

What is the value of a place when the only people who are expected to be interested in and use the interesting things built there are people who don’t even live there?

The Aces

So the new Reno team is named the Reno Aces Baseball Club.  The Aces.  The erstwhile reader will know that I’ve been holding out for a new Silver Sox – but anyone who has been watching the situation long enough to be called erstwhile knows that calling the team by that name is probably a nonstarter from a legal, copyright, etc, standpoint.

The Aces is ok with me.  It’s a pretty good name in the contexts already mentioned – a good gambling reference and a cute little diamond on the A, and a baseball reference too.

But it’s also a great reference from the stated topic of this blog.  Reno has recently shown itself to be committed to bringing its “A Game” to the effort to fix the city up and make it a more desirable city for residents and visitors alike.  Keep it up, Reno.  Go get yerself a pennant.

Reno: New Ball Club to Announce Team Name Sept 23, 2008

The moment many in Reno have been waiting over a year for will arrive on September 23, 2008, when SK Baseball LLC announces its team name and logo at the Siena Spa Hotel Casino in an event open to the public.

The event starts at 4 pm in the 2nd floor ballroom at Siena, which is located at the corner of Mill and Lake in downtown Reno.

Early arrival is recommended.

I can't wait to hear what they picked!  I hope I like it.

It's Politics. On The Urban Blog.

I can't go long without having thoughts about politics, so it's time to say something about politics.

I want to let everybody know that I'm supporting the Obama-Biden ticket in the upcoming Presidential election.  I was kind of wondering why my output has been consistently low on this blog for awhile now, and there are a ton of reasons, but probably the one I neglected to notice was my addiction to presidential election politics and my apprehension to writing about it here.

Yes, folks, I am the kind of person who starts watching Road to the White House as soon as they start airing it in advance of the upcoming election season.  I pay good close attention.  I'm more of a Democrat, but I try to consume a fair amount of both sides' content.  I want to make sure that I feel the way I feel before I allow myself to actually feel it.

Last year when I was in Reno visiting the folks, Barack Obama showed up to town and had a really nice event in Wingfield Park.  He gave a jim-dandy speech and complimented the city and talked about civil rights and his health care plan and foreign affairs and his story a little bit.  It was a short speech, but it was densely packed and it was coming out from a clarity of belief and purpose that was evident.

Organizers gather for orientation at Barack Obama's appearance in Reno, NV on 05/30/07

The naysayers of Obama often say that they think he is long on platitudes but short on details, but every time I hear him speak, I hear words that actually represent what actions would be taken to effect the kinds of changes he's talking about.  He makes a good case for not being a jerk and for trying to lead with issues and not to insult your opponent but to insult their policy positions.

You may wish to go back to the point about the details that I have heard that not everybody heard.  Well, after the jump... a few.

Good work, Reno News & Review

D. Brian Burghart writes in this week's RN&R about the time he thought about taking the bus to church on a recent Sunday.

For roughly the same cost as driving, Burghart would get to spend about 3.5 hours doing 28 minutes worth of traveling.

It's an easy read so I won't spoil the punchline here any more than I already have.

Burghart didn't say anything about the choices that led to him living in a place where the nearest bus stop was a 43 minute walk.  I guess that's a separate discussion.

Reno: “In the cooker”

One of my favorite foods to eat is brisket.  It’s also quite fun, and very rewarding, to prepare.

Alas, it’s a hard food to prepare.  Not because the procedure is terribly complex (to do it right, it helps to know lots of little details, but I’m the kind of person who absolutely loves to know those kinds of details so that I can employ them to my benefit.)  No, the difficult part about cooking brisket is putting it in the cooker and waiting hours and hours and hours and hours and hours for it to get done cookin’.

I cook my brisket over coals, and so the whole time it’s happening, I have to concern myself with such things as:  Will the coals last the whole cooking time?  Is the brisket truly cooking properly?  During this time I know I dare not open the lid, for that will mess with the temperature inside the cooker and that will mess with the whole cooking of the brisket; I have a portal on the cooker I can open that won’t spoil the environment inside and a flashlight I can shine in onto the brisket, which honestly doesn’t tell me a damn thing, but it makes me feel better.  At least I can look in on it while it’s cooking.

I cant wait to get it out of the cooker and carve into it and make a big delish sandwich out of it.  Oh how I look forward to that moment.

Well folks, that’s where downtown Reno is right now.  The baseball stadium is in the cooker (it’s cooking fast though, like a steak.)  The train trench cover is in the cooker (it’s cooking slow, like a brisket.)  The “retail district” set to accompany the ballpark is marinating in the fridge waiting for its time to go into the cooker.  The facade improvement project is is like sourdough bread and we’re still waiting for the starter to get a good culture on.  Everything depends on the ability of the coals to stay lit long enough to finish cooking one dish:  we can add more coals in between dishes, but the anticipation is killing me!!  I can’t help but shine my little flashlight into the cooker.  Yup, the brisket known as Reno redevelopment, is still cookin’.

Come on already!

In Other News...

In other news, this blog has now been going for 3 years.  The past three years have been a very interesting time to be covering what I cover here, and it's been fun doing it.

There has been a dearth of posts lately, so any readers left might be wondering what's going on here.  Well, I look at it in terms of the subject matter I cover:  urban development, environmental and economic stability happenings and I primarily focus on Northern Nevada (note:  I live in Seattle but I'm from Reno.  I like covering Reno better.)

For much of the past three years lots of new news has been popping up and fun speculation about whether things were happening or not.  I have had all kinds of ideas and visions and made all kinds of models and mockups for people to look at and hopefully it inspired a little thought.

The past six months or so haven't been all that newsy, but job isn't done here at The Urban Blog.  More of all the crap I just described will continue to appear here.  I can't say at what rate new coverage will appear.  Those of you who have subscribed via RSS are the smart ones - you'll be notified by your reader when new content appears.

As always, the best source of news for anything that's happening in downtown Reno development is Downtown Makeover, and I urge all readers to keep abreast with the news there.  If and when Reno gets its streaming video situation figured out, look for more coverage from the gavel, more regularly.  Until then, thanks for reading!  I hope you keep checking back.