"Enough Already!"
My girlfriend and cats stared at me as I broke the monotony of prime- time local news with something between a yelp and a scream.
But I'd had it. I reached my breaking point. It was another story on the poor, destitute Las Vegans who can't afford their property taxes, with some chump making the most ridiculous argument I'd heard yet in this debate.
I'm not quoting exactly verbatim, but you'll get the gist:
"The way property values have gone up is outrageous," he said. "They should cut off growth."
The man who said it had lived here less than five years.
ENOUGH ALREADY!
It seems like a lot of people are saying those exact words about the growth of this city. Enough new taxes, enough drought, enough new public services and most of all, enough people.
It's the easy answer, and it seems like many people are just content to live with it.
I've been hearing the argument for more than 15 years, not understanding it in my youth and later simply dismissing it.
"We're going to end up like another Los Angeles. New people are going to ruin this place."
And here we are, on the verge of bankrupting our government, thanks to our "Damn the consequences a generation from now, I won't be here" seniors trying to pass property tax caps; here we are, burdened with nearly a million new residents in the last 15 years but still standing to reap the rewards when we sell our now hyper-inflated land holdings.
But is this really a long-term problem?
After all, isn't there a land rush ongoing in Mohave County, Arizona, where developers find a much more stable government climate than Pahrump with about the same commute time, give or take a bridge over the Colorado?
Won't there be new lands opening up between here and Primm for private development—residential or otherwise—when the Ivanpah airport is completed?
If that happens, don't expect property values to stay too high for too long, which means that what could be a one-time windfall used by government to give us immediate improvements to our quality of life would turn into a dream of yesteryear. What if this is an opportunity diguised as a problem?
That guy on TV will never buy that argument, of course, nor will people like him. Remember, these are the same people who move here, sigh in relief at the low taxes, and then say we should stop growth.
These are people who don't care about the state they live in, despite their anguished pleas for the influx to stop. They care about themselves and their money, and the second something better pops up in the Next Great Place, they'll be gone. Yes, a third of the people who move here may leave, but another third stay and just gripe about it.
Enough is enough, I say. Either enjoy what you got and deal with what's coming, or pack up the Cadillac and move to St. George.