Courtesy City of Sparks
An aerial view of the city of Sparks.
Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023 | 2 a.m.
• 13th in a series
Nevada is a sprawling state with most of its people in two population centers. But beyond the reaches of Las Vegas and Reno is a land filled with attractions and history. Some of them, of course, might not be familiar to most Nevadans. The Sun has reached out to mayors and representatives of the Silver State’s 19 cities, giving them a platform in our pages to talk about their area’s history and attractions and to describe what makes them special and what challenges they face.
Today, we present a Q+A with Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson.
What new development opening in 2024 has you excited?
We are very excited to begin construction on our new Fire Station 6. In October 2023, we closed escrow on the property and have added enough firefighter/paramedic positions to fully staff the new station as soon as it is up and running.
Once we break ground on the new fire station, it should take about 18 months to build. The station will be state of the art with the safety of our fire staff at the heart of the design.
What is the biggest challenge facing your jurisdiction?
Nevada’s taxation system requires that cities grow or die, and Sparks is running out of land. Without either federal lands legislation to allow the development of land surrounding Sparks that is currently owned by the Bureau of Land Management, or an amendment to the Nevada Constitution to modernize our property tax system to allow the assessment value to reset when a home is sold, Sparks must continue to serve the public with revenues that are not keeping up with expenses for critical equipment and staff, or even declining.
How can public safety be enhanced in your community?
Additional funding for staff and equipment would obviously enhance public safety. However, we are using technology across the city to enhance public safety.
We’ve started a drone program in our police department. These drones can be used for search and rescue operations, to assess scenes in critical incidents, to take measurements and gather data after serious vehicle collisions, and many other high-tech, efficient ways. We also implemented the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system to alert first responders to gunshots faster. The goal of this system is to get first responders on scene quicker, improving both solvability of crimes involving firearms and survival rates of victims.
Finally, Sparks is proud to be working with our partners throughout the region to launch a unified computer-aided dispatch system to get the closest appropriate resources to incident scenes as quickly as possible, regardless of agency or jurisdiction.
What industry is most important to your town? What about diversifying?
We are excited that our economy is growing more diverse, specifically in the area of technology. A great example is the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, the largest industrial park in the world, located east of Sparks. The center is home to the Tesla Gigafactory and many other tech companies such as Blockchains, Google, Jet.com, and Switch. Many employees live right here in Sparks.
Nevadans have lived with historic drought for the past two decades. What initiatives are in place to save the valuable commodity of water?
The city does treat wastewater and reuse treated effluent for irrigation throughout the Truckee Meadows, helping conserve freshwater in our area.
